From the rlAussie pressrl, Big Mal had some interesting commentsHe said England lacked initiative in attack and, with the benefit of hindsight, should have picked Leeds Rhinos halves Rob Burrow and Danny McGuire as their playmakers.

"When you're playing against Australia, you can't afford to play to a real structure," Reilly said.

"You've got to beat them at their own game, and that's playing off the cuff.

"I think if they'd have gone with the Leeds halves combination, together with the Leeds lock forward Kevin Sinfield, they might have got a bit more out of it, because they understand each other.

"When you pull an international side together, they can train together but deep down they don't have that understanding.[/i

Now who's gonna volunteer to tell Mal that it's called Loose Forward not "Lock" FFS

What's Mal doing these days?

Does he want the England job?

But one difference with Aussie rep sides is that they don't need a huge amount of coaching to gel - on the field at least. Phil Gould made that point when discussing coaching Origin teams - he basically said that they just focus on specific planned moves and a few combinations and the like, as all the players can do the basics without needing to be told.

He's 6ft and over 18st. He can say what the hell he likes and i'm not gonna argue.

ignore me, wrong thread!

According to Wikipedia

"Reilly now works as a sales rep in the Newcastle, NSW area"

The advantage the aussie's have is that they tend to play very similar structures at all there NRL sides so players know them to start off with in super league most sides appear to have different structures especially in defence so that we would be best taking (if possible) set groups I.E Senoir and hall on the left for defence with another combination from another team (yes I know kieth wasn't availble but as example) the problem I think is do we have any teams with english centres and wingers ?

McGuire, Burrow, Sinfield and Diskin should have been the spine of the team IMO, with Eastmond and Roby plus 2 props on the bench. Not saying we'd have won it, but at least those 4 know each others games inside out and Smith has experience of working with them. I'd have had Tomkins in the squad but not picked him unless we'd had a dead rubber.

I was going to disagree about Diskin but then I thought about England's other options at 9...

Have a read of Matty Johns' book ('From the Sheds' or similar) if you want to read stories about Reilly as coach at Newcastle. An Absolute barmpot.

Definately in a great position to make such a call.

So am I. But you argue with me...

Some interesting stories in Andrew Johns's too. Though he gives credit to Reilly for getting them fitter than they had been under Waite.

Give him the job.

I wouldn't trust Andrew Johns opinion on anything. Long term recreational drug use can have an adverse impact on both memory and perception.