A good coach can take an average group of players and make them better. Which Macnamara (and to be fair, Potter) impressively failed to do at the Bulls. To take a good bunch of players (ie England) and make them play well is a given. There is enough experience in that England team to enable them to coach themselves. It would have been a major surprise if the second best team in the 4 team (3 really) competition had not made the final.
But I am sure it's all down to Steve's superior coaching.

Interesting analysis.

So, following your analysis, you would go along with that school of thought that holds that Noble's success at Bradford was down to him having a good bunch of players (indeed, about as good as they came, many would say, especially the 2003 crop?) who were effectively able to coach themselves?

Although surely the same logic should have held when he was the GB coach?

I'm sorry but all this crap about a team of good players "being able to coach themselves" really is just so much horse, it really is, and without wanting to be too rude, the poster must surely know it.

Anyone with even a modicum of sporting knowledge realises that a squad of good players becomes a winning team, even a great team sometimes, thanks to the coaching skills of the Wayne Bennetts, Vicente del Bosques, Alf Ramseys, Jack Gibsons, Bob Fultons, et al of this world. I think it's dumb beyond words to suggest each team would have "coached itself" to glory. It also displays an incredible lack of understanding of the role of a national team coach.

Club coaching and international coaching are very different. Club coaches have to be concerned with conditioning, maintaining performance across a season, negotiating salaries to fit within the cap, development of players, day to day contact with players, continuous pressure to name a few.

International coaches have to select the right players and blend them into a team for just a few matches.

Both roles are difficult and require and require good coaching skills. Bean good are bad in one role will not necessarily into the other.

This series Macnamara has done well up to press. If we remain competitive in the final I will be happy and it will show that for this international series Macca has coached well.

This from a poster who's spent the last half decade excusing Macnamara's dreadful results by telling us it was the Bradford players who couldn't ar3ed. When at Bradford it was the players fault but at international level it is super Steve's coaching that has resulted in one good performance against a decent side.

You're also wrong about giving SM credit. England played well against the Kiwis and he deserves the plaudits. If he beats the Aussies he'll go down as a successful England coach and good luck to him. As England coach he doesn't have to identitfy, sign and then improve players with potential, a skill he simply doesn't possess. He has picked the right team, give or take and I hope he's there taking the applause of the crowd on Saturday with the trophy but no matter how many pages you get this thread to run to you won't achieve your main aim, which is to somehow change history. Macnamara was a dreadful appointment at the Bulls and the record books will show that. You championed and defended him against all logic when those who you now seek to mock called it correctly. ME and plenty of others were proved right and you were proved disastrously wrong. To suggest that beacuse he's done OK with England changes what happened at Bradford or that you personally are vindicated in your poor judgement is bordering on the hysterical.

There is definitely something to be said for a good group of players coaching themselves, but it is very short term. I have been at clubs when a new coach has come in & pretty soon it was apparent they knew less than a number of the senior players; things went downhill after a few weeks. Similarly, players who (IMO) lacked character will not succeed at the highest level, as a coach, as they will not have the mental strength to deal with ego players or those who remember their coach as a player - Steadman, Cummins, Hay spring to mind.
You just need to look at NZ to see if an international group of players can coach themselves longer term. Gary Kemble suffered an embarrassing 3-0 whitewash in 2007 & lost the team, then his job. The following year a Kearney/Bennett combo won the WC.

Apparently it is horsesh*t according to FA. So you must be wrong.


3 or 4 games for example?

Fibbing is silly, but the ad hominem is noted. No change there.

You deliberately miss the team qualification that is taken 'as read' in a national squad, namely that to begin with, all are (within that country's resources) "good" players; i.e. the best the whole league can muster.

You also falsely state I "excused" the coach when (as you must known, clearly having been an avid reader, presumably in various disguises) that I principally blame the players. But I have never tried to make it childishly simple, there have been a number of very big factors at play at Bradford, and while I have (frequently) said the coach must take his share of the responsibility, you ignore this totally. It is I think now trite to say I was right, given the start the players have given our new broom coach, and given that we've just had our worst ever season under a man who by pretty common consent is a decent coach.


I made the pretty self-evident observation that the England team seems well coached. Now you are stupidly trying to say I think the players had nothing to do with it. Don't you actually read this drivel before posting it?


well, yes, so what is the rest of your whinge about?