I think England’s starting 13 was a match for any team in the competition, a bit weaker off the bench. I also think McN did as well as any English coach could in the circumstances. I would have preferred Wayne Bennett or Craig Bellamy but I don’t think they applied. Where I believe we fell short was the lack of real big match experience, particularly amongst the backs. We had ample opportunity to kill off the game & with a bit more killer instinct we should have beaten both teams.

Pretty much. He didn't succeed because we lost to both sides. Nor can he be described as a failure as in the context of the last 20 years we performed with merit and both games were good games, particularly against the Kiwis. And who else wants the job?

I would not bother about it. You are indeed correct,of course, but this is typical FA tactics that you have clearly seen through. He is a joke poster. Nobody takes him seriously whatsoever.

Let him have his moment. It comforts him.

What do you mean. "Er"? Are you having a senior moment? The specific thing ME complained about which is the specific thing i replies to was my comment he quoted, I said
"[iNobody could have done better[/i"
and he replied, to that claim,
"[iStop dressing opinion up as fact[/i".

regardless of that, my reply made it 100% clear what i was responding to.

The comment was not aimed at any of the phrases you mention, so you've got involved for no reason, and just look like you can't read properly.

Of course, in the case of ME, if I said the game was indisputably held at Wembley, he would dispute it, and anyway considers his opinion that McNamara can't coach to be indisputable fact not opinion, so he's the last one to talk

Translationad hominem[/i as per, and hope nobody notices what I did there.

Oops!

.

Indeed.


mystic eddie ought to be a shoo-in. He has all the answers, and we would clearly never lose again.

Are you free, ME?

I think home advantage is overplayed. It didn’t do us much good in the last world cup over here when we got spanked by a record score by the Kiwis. Against Australia I don’t think we’ve won a test series at home since the 1930s (Over 80 years FFS!). We’ve never won a Tri Nations on either side of the world. I’d say that more important factors are at play such as quality of the players and the coach.

If Bennett/Bellamy/Maguire/Waterhouse were to want the England job I’d have them in a flash. I suspect though that McBanana got the job because he was the best option at the time. Whether he still is I don’t know. Maybe now England have proved they’re not the crap easy beats that some said they were if might persuade some other coaches to apply.

The sad thing is FA, that with that pool of players at his disposal (and the ones he overlooked of course), that I reckon anyone could have coached them to wins over the might of Ireland, Fiji and France and lose to the other two.

Hardly an achievement.

Made the country proud indeed.

Think you’re being a bit harsh there Eddie. I was proud of the performance England put in at the weekend. The last 40 seconds weren’t what we wanted but that shouldn’t overshadow what was a good performance. If they can play at that level more consistently we’ll win an international tournament at some stage soon.

It was more the fact that FA is actually trying to tell us that it made the COUNTRY proud. It might have made a few thousand RL fans proud but most of the country either would not have been aware that the game was on, or actually cared two hoots about it, given the relative low standing that RL has on a nationwide scale.

Anyway, I thought it was we Scots that took pride in glorious failure. It seems we are passing on the baton now.

TBH this World Cup has raised the profile of the game higher than it's been since 1995 IMO. That might not be saying much but it's a start.

As for failure at least it was glorious. Plenty of times it's not even been that

So, nothing to say on the subject. Again. Noted.


I have never met Mcnamara so he isn't my "buddy". Brough being MoS was fair enough but in a World 13 side is actually silly. But the main reason your irrelevant move to the Brough situation is pointless is because it was Brough who said he did not want to be considered for England, but threw his lot in with your lot.

Regardless of that, a coach has to pick what he sees as his strongest players. Not everyone will agree, the point is that - however you want to try to spin it - any national coach deciding (if he did) not to pick player X or player Y is irrelevant to how well he can coach.


The rational people are judging the coaching by the performances, not the bare results. You are just creaming yourself cos a McNamara team didn't make the final. How they played isn't even remotely relevant to your unhealthy anti-Mac obsession, so you ignore it.

Just putting assorted personalities to one side for a moment in my opinion the key lesson from the WC was that it shows how important the international arena is for the profile of the game, and it's ability to attract sponsorship. So whoever ends up at the helm we need to sort out a proper international program with more games.

The competition was always going to be a three horse race and the results show we lost to the other two contenders, though but for a collective 80 sec brain fart from experienced players we should really be in the final. So I agree that our performance against both Australia and NZ showed we have become competitive but in some ways I would be more concerned by the performances against Italy, Ireland and Fiji - both Oz and NZ kept their foot on the gas against the 2nd tier opponents for the full 80 minutes - and that's the level of concentration the England team needs to have if we are finally to close the gap.

Lets hope then that whoever is the coach gets more support, regular fixtures against the top teams - and perhaps more importantly support from the SL clubs to put aside their narrow interests and support the international game because that is the surest route to wider coverage and sponsorship.