yeah, didn't james donaldson say that the reason he signed for us and not leeds was that mcnamara had actually gone to his house to personally meet him but he'd not said 2 words to tony smith during negotiations with leeds?

And just who exactly would you have parachuted in immediately to replace him? Who would have been fully up to speed with everything? And who would not cause initial disruption? And who knew everything about the club and the players and what he had to deal with?

The only thing worse for the Bulls than having a Head Coach with less time and headspace on the case would be NO head coach, I suggest?

Something that has been lost on everyone on here who has repeatedly called for Macca to resign immediately because he was not delivering what they expected.

Get real!!!

Excellent. Spot on IMO. You can come again.

The only qualifications he's really got, is that he's British and he'd take the job !!!

So being part of the England set up under Tony Smith doesn't qualify as a good experience to have.........? Being part of the set up and actually having an idea of what life is like during the set up has surely got to be worth something?!?!?!

And what qualities would you like the England coach to have.............? ! ? ! ? 3 super league titles under his belt .........?

Good luck to Steve M, i hope you do really well and there is nothing more than ANY british rugby league follower wants more is for England to be able to compete with the Aussies and have a great chance of beating them consistently!

Let the Fun begin on who is going to replace him, people haven't mentioned Karl Harrison along with the usual suspects.
Will Peter Hood think of appointing a NRL assistant coach seeing as Brown and now McGuire have shown some quality, (using Wayne Bennetts criterea that it can take up to 7 yrs as an assistant before they are ready to step up as Head Coach!)
Those that think Macca will let the Bulls slide now have got that wrong, the one he thing will want, is to see the Bulls to perform strongly for the rest of the season to prove that he can do the job and stick metaphorical two fingers to his detractors and show the RFL they have a hired a quality coach.
I'm just disappointed he chose not to extend his contract for at 2-3 more years, just when the worst seemed over.
As with Nobbygate I'm sure there will be a slow leaking of versions from both camps on this, roll on the next Fans Forum!

There's nothing wrong with any of that, in fact it's good plain sense.

The biggest problem for England is that over here RL is a fourth rate sport(judged on financial level and media interest) whilst in Aussie it's a big deal. We can boast maybe half a dozen world class players whilst they can put seventeen on the field (and have a further seventeen, just in case); they have better players, more of them and what's more they play, on a weekly basis, in a stronger competition that prepares them better for the big tournaments.

That's why we can only beat them very occasionally and why we can't win the big competitions where it's necessary to beat them at least twice. So, Stevie Mac has got the poisoned chalice; he's won the opportunity to be humiliated on an annual basis, weighed down by misplaced expectation and then, presumably, to be regarded as a failure because he couldn't manage to do the impossible.

As long as we have a situation where far too many kids have either never heard of RL or have no realistic chance of taking it up due to the area they live in, we will never beat the Aussies, and there is no scope for Steve to do anything about that. Until we can persuade much greater numbers of young people to come into the game, changing the England coach will remain, and be as pointless as, shuffling the deckchairs on the Titanic.

I agree with most of that but if you take soccer which is the no1 sport, money just seems to pile into it for certain clubs, they keep telling us they play in the best league in the world, we are told we have enough world class players but they still are unable to win any major tournament ie world cup etc. That seems completely opposite to the Aussies, so are we back to the question of coaching ?

In football decent English coaches are pretty rare too.

McNamara clearly worked hard on that part of the club, so that level of interest in the youth side of things has to be maintained, the board have to make it clear to any potential new coach as part of the recruitment process.

Surely by taking the England job he's crippled his future coaching career?

Enhanced, in my view. That is because I have expectations that he will prove the most successful England/GB coach for some years, and will put in place structures which will reflect well on him. That will be very much a minority view at the moment, so I'm nailing my colours to the mast now.