I'm sure it plays a part but if Australia are THAT good and far advanced, dominating shouldn't be a problem at all.

No, the problem with England's international RL is twofold; management and mentals. The recent 4n is a classic example, there were players selected who are past their international sell-by date and in the final again that combined with poor mental conditioning resulted in England's worst performance of the entire tournament.

It says to me that people in the UK believe the myth and are happier to get a coach purely because he is australian, rather than a brit could possibly be equally as good if not better.

Alternatively you could say that they went through the recruitment processes and were deemed to be the best candidates for the job.

Just to add to this later bit of the digressed discussion. I'm interested to see how Brian McDermott fares now because if as you say is right, it will mean we've reached a point where the psychological aspect of the game is now more critical than the technical aspect, which is where I believe the NRL is.

Fair call McClennan. Sport in the UK in general appears to be changing slightly with the psych stuff.


Sorry to harp on. It just gets to me that people believe back home have this core belief that the aussies MUST be better at coaching, skills, conditioning etc. but no-one can truly prove that belief. And as I said, I've worked with people who told me that isn't the case. So I lean to those that have lived it's experience.

Australia have a massive talent pool, they have more people playing in Oz plus they have the plenty of islands to poach from Cook Island, PNG, Tonga, Samoa, Fiji and NZ who always find some way of playing for Oz.