Thanks Keith

Although to be fair, I did ask what [iyour[/i suggestions were, not what the RFL had already said on the matter.

If you don't have any, that's fine. Just say so.

Short of having a nucleus of at least 40 to 50 English players to select from who ply their trade in the NRL competition, I believe we've no chance of ever beating Australia in a series.

Our competitiveness on the international stage has also worsened since the advent of Super League, summer rugby and full-time professionalism. Our international results during the Super League era are worse than they were in the equivalent period of say a decade and a half pre-Super League era.

Any idea why that is the case?

Things were so great a decade and a half prior to Super League were they?

So, just what was so great about 1982 and 1986 from a GB RL point of view? The 88 tour was disastrous but is looked back on fondly by virtue of victory in the dead rubber game at Sydney being so historic, but it didn't win a series.

We got close to the Aussies in 1990 and 1992 but no cigar. We've been there with series in SL as well.

We won a couple of series against the Kiwis in the period 1980-1995 but, then again, the Kiwis at that time weren't in the NRL to the extent they are now. They were drawn from Auckland and Wellington teams. We have won a series against the Kiwis in the SL era.

So please, enlighten us all by explaining just how things were so much better in the decade and a half prior to Super League?

I don't expect it to happen, but England could surprise Aus/NZ this season. Most people have already written off McNamara as a failed coach here, so he has nothing to lose and a hell of a lot of motivation at the same time. Brian Smith is also helping out IIRC in the same way Bennett did with Kearney & NZ - perhaps not the man with the record to win us trophies, but he still has the habit of getting to finals and will be able to advise McNamara a lot about refereeing interpretations and individual players etc. It is a good sign that he's prepared to admit he was wrong in the past (effectively) by not picking any Bulls players, even if some were arguably deserving places (Lynch, Scruton?). I'd be happy if England get the odd unexpected result and the likes of Tomkins (who I believe will offer more than McGuire at this level) get a bit of winning experience instead of the usual spankings we've become accustomed to.

To reply to Keith, I suspect one reason why we've not been as successful in the SL era is the lack of talent coming through from RU to swell our options in the backs. Where are the likes of Offiah, Tait, Devereux, Davies etc - pacy backs with flair and a bit of skill (in some cases)? Now most of our outside backs (Hall included to the greater extent) are just biff and barge types, that rarely pose much of an attacking threat (Senior at his peak aside).

Loads of reasons.

At that time we had sway over union, we were pro, they were all part time. So we could poach some of their top players and that helped paper over a cracks.

Next, we just happened to have a very good crop of players at that time. Fantastic. Skillfull, creative players. With the introduction of super league and full time, it seemed to work to stifle creative flair and the focus shifted to bulking players up and making them as powerful as possible. But fitness seemed to suffer. So we were alot less fit and alot less fast and creative. Hence the embarassing results at that time.

The nrl and basically everything about the australian game has developed and improved alot more, and alot faster than the english game and results have been mediocre. Sometimes we look as if we can just about match them. 1 year later they'll put a record score on us.

It's all over the place.

Super league has improved our game.....but not in relation to australia who have imrpoved more.

I guess some of it comes down to a nostalgia thing.

There were alot of genuine rl legends in the team at that time, offiah, edwards, schofield, lydon, davies and the like, so you look back and think ''wow, we were so much better back then, who do we have now, leeroy cudjoe?''.

We're being coached by a banana!! Of course we're going to lose.

But as ap will repeat ad nasuem, the coach doesn't matter because we simply don't have the cattle blah blah blah blah.

Not great (your word, not mine) but better. We were more competitive and more successful pre-SL era.



1982-86 was the wake-up call... we woke up circa 1988-94... we had some genuine world class players like Ellery Hanley, Garry Schofield, Martin Offiah, Kevin Ward... we had several players who weren't far off world class... Andy Gregory, Jonathan Davies, Gary Connolly, Andy Platt, Denis Betts, Shaun Edwards, Lee Crooks, Des Drummond, Joe Lydon, Jason Robinson.

Then Super League came along and we fell asleep... again!

Pssst! We haven't woke up yet either.



When was that? When did we ever get close to winning a series against the Aussies during the SL-era like we did in 1990 and 1992?

I'll tell you what we have seen against the Aussies during the SL era... we've seen record defeats and embarrassingly lopsided defeats like 64-10, 42-6, 44-4, 52-4, 46-16 and we've seen record defeats against the Kiwis like 49-6 and 34-4. Sadly, players like Peacock and Senior will remember every single one of them, or in the case of Senior, he'll have probably forgotten as he's sold all his shirts!



It wasn't the NRL back then... it was the Winfield Cup... the Kiwis weren't exclusively Aussie-based but a lot were. Mark Horo (Easts), Tony Iro (Manly, Easts), Kevin Iro (Manly), Dean Bell (Easts), Clayton Friend (Norths), Mark Graham (Norths), Dane & Kurt Sorensen (Cronulla), Mark Broadhurst (Manly, Illawarra), Gary Prohm (Easts), John Lomax (Canberra), Hugh McGahan (Easts), Darrell Williams (Manly), Sam Stewart (Newcastle), Brent Todd (Canberra), Gary Freeman (Balmain/Easts/Penrith), Tony Kemp (Newcastle), Brendon Tuuta (Wests), Dave Watson (Cronulla), Jarrod McCracken (Canterbury, Parramatta), Brent Stuart (Wests), Quentin Pongia (Canberra), Daryl Halligan (Norths/Canterbury), Jason Williams (Wests/Easts/Souths/Penrith), Jason Lowrie (Easts, Balmain), Olsen Filipaina (Balmain/Easts) to name a few.

And guess what?

We beat them in three successive series in 1989 (home), 1990 (away) and 1993 (home).



Against a Kiwi side who didn't want to play for the coach (Kemble) and who were in disarray... wow! And we've never beaten the Kiwis once away from home during the entire SL-era either... we've lost 8 on the bounce.



International results were indeed better pre-SL.

Test Results V Australia (SL era, 22 tests, 1996-2009)
Home - P17 W3 D0 L14 F232 A438
Away - P5 W1 D0 L4 F53 A203
Total - P22 W4 D0 L18 F285 A641

Test Results V Australia (Pre SL era, previous 22 Tests, 1984-1995)
Home - P13 W3 D0 L10 F126 A273
Away - P9 W2 D0 L7 F116 A174
Total - P22 W5 D0 L17 F242 A447

Test Results V New Zealand (SL era, 24 tests, 1996-2009)
Home - P16 W9 D2 L5 F377 A334
Away - P8 W0 D0 L8 F107 A213
Total - P24 W9 D2 L13 F484 A547

Test Results V New Zealand (Pre SL era, previous 24 Tests, 1979-1995)
Home - P12 W7 D2 L3 F212 A124
Away - P12 W5 D0 L7 F165 A194
Total - P24 W12 D2 L10 F377 A318

So where has it all gone wrong during the SL-era?

Full-time professionalism and summer rugby hasn't paid the dividends promised.

So, for all the spin you've just put on that post the bare facts are that in the 15 pre SL seasons we won one more game against Australia than we have in the 15 years since (and we could well match that record in this year's four nations. Well, theoretically anyway). One game.

I'll concede that we were better than the Kiwis in that period but the bare act is even then it's still only 3 more games.

Considering we had players in that era that you considered to be "world class" I am surprised they could barely do any better than their Super League counterparts.

International results during the SL-era are also somewhat skewed in GB/England's favour by the excessive number of internationals played on home soil and the advantage that brings, in direct comparison to the pre-SL era.

The alleged benefits of Super League, full-time professionalism and summer rugby have not been realised as international results and performances have nosedived. The gap in playing standards between us and Australia has widened and we've been overtaken by the Kiwis.

The SL-era had defined itself as a testimony to very ordinary playing standards domestically and an embarrassment internationally.

On another note, the NZ Maori team to face England next week is as followsNEW ZEALAND MAORI: Kevin Locke (Warriors), Sandor Earl (Penrith), Timana Tahu (Parramatta), Clinton Toopi (Gold Coast), Arana J Taumata (North Queensland), Rangi Chase (Castleford), Jeremy Smith (Wakefield), Willie Heta (Otahuhu), Aaron Heremaia (Warriors), Weller Hauraki (Crusaders), Justin Horo (Parramatta), Bodene Thompson (Gold Coast), Kevin Proctor (Melbourne), James Tamou (North Queensland), Sam McKendry (Penrith), Russell Packer (Warriors). One player to be added from Kiwis.

Coach: Richie Blackmore.

Why's that?

the word "lillywhites" springs to mind

Aah Richie's sports bar.

Tidy wife mind.

Grrrrrrrrr!