A bit like a probables v possibles would love it!

Does anybody much care what Tony Smith says on matters unrelated to Warrington? His stewardship of England at the last World Cup, was sub-optimal to say the least and a lot of the criticism of McNamara stems from fears he is following a similar path.

And his recent calls for the RFL to be stronger (ie do what he wants them to do) and less innovative (by sticking with a failed system that nobody trusts) was pretty toe-curling, IMO.

Great club coach, very nice guy by all accounts, and entitled to an opinion like everybody else - just doesn't carry that much weight for me on certain subjects.

Edit - there's also the irony that he's arguably kept out of the team by a player who has chosen England because he wasn't willing to take on the challenge of earning a place in the kiwis team - struggling to see that that represents a better attitude. I've no problem with what either of them have done - just don't see any difference.

The squad McNamara has is significantly better than the squad Tony Smith had in 2008. Are you saying you wouldn't want Tony Smith coaching the current England side?



He was spot on with his comments. We radically changed the format of the competition, attendances, and the amount of players playing the game at all levels increased, yet now because a few championship clubs whinge, we're looking at changing it back to a system that failed for 40 years.

Smith is very intelligent, knowledgeable and successful, he has close ties with many throughout the game, at all levels and huge amount of information to from his opinions from. He works hard and is experienced.

I can see why many RL fans don’t like him when he says things they dont want to hear.

Slightly O/T but Peter Wallace has also decided to play for Scotland as well.

Well said Tony Smith.

Depends on the extent to which he recognised and learned from his mistakes last time when England failed to even give a good account of themselves or fulfill even their fairly limited potential. IMO. It wouldn't especially excite me tbh. Equally, I'd acknowledge that is one of the few blots on his very impressive copybook.

Some of the players available for the World Cup are exciting - I just worry a bit about how the attempts to engender a club atmosphere by mainly sticking with a pool of players selected a couple of years out limits our options, which are already narrower than we'd like.




If he was right, then he was late. Licensing died to allow Bradford to be reborn.
Whether that was worth it or wise or not is open to debate, but the opportunity to be 'stable, strong and consistent' as he put it, had already gone. Possibly even before that, when they accidentally ended up letting newco Wakefield continue in SL. It could be argued that 'stable, strong and consistent' is better than 'transparent, fair and honest' of course. They're all very subjective terms anyway. Events blew the system off course very easily - as it was inherently weak - and the pretence of carrots and sticks couldn't be maintained. Propping up such an obviously flawed and weak system isn't strong, it'd be stupid, if it were even possible.
It has to be some form of P&R or out and out NRL-esque franchising, either of which represents change and either of which could equally be viewed as a strong or weak decision, depending on your own preference.

Yes he is/does.



I don't dislike him. I just think he's wrong on these issues and his arguments aren't even all that internally consistent, or deserving of especial credence - because his positive attributes are in other areas.

I think his argument actually made perfect sense, especially in regards to youth development and the effects of youth development at a national level under P+R. Lets face it, Tony Smith is the poster boy of franchising, he has seen the damage the uncertainty of P+R causes and its damaging effect on building a club at Hudds, he saw its damaging effects at national level as England coach (I wonder what Smith would have given to put out a back line of Tomkins, Hall, Watkins, Cudjoe, Charnley, rather than Wellens, Calderwood, Sykes, Senior, Smith) and under franchising he has taken a middling club to the very top echelons.

Im not sure many people are in a better position to comment.

Should probably have said something sooner then. I wouldn't dismiss what he says because he's some nomark, because clearly he isn't - on the other hand I'm not going to all jelly kneed because it is him saying it, any more than I would for any fairly prominent figure in the game. I can reel off a few big names that are in favour of various options, I'm just surprised that his view is perceived as all that weighty and that he seems to be very keen at the moment to wade into issues beyond his immediate remit.
De facto franchising, as opposed to criteria-based licensing, might well be working - but acknowledging that is what we have and continuing with it is itself change of a type. If that's what he's advocating.

Back on Brough - no different, that I can see, to any number of English or Aussie born players who have chosen Scotland or Ireland. Does TS think they've all got bad attitudes too?
If he's been a bit Billy Bighead with McNamara (which I can believe in fairness, and it'd have looked better focusing on choosing Scotland rather than any sense that he's rejected England), it seems unlikely to have cost him anything, as SM clearly doesn't fancy him and seems very unlikely to have picked him anyway. And the attitude-exclusion issue could be seen as a chicken and egg thing.

Whilst they aren’t within his remit, they certainly aren’t outside of his experience. Very few people have been England/GB coach, even fewer recently. The current and previous one seem to hold similar opinions on Danny Brough, and there isn’t a huge bandwagon of support for him coming from similary quarters. That in itself should be telling.He wasn’t advocating one specific structure. Just a less drastic change.

Brough had two choices, play for England or play for Scotland. He seems to have seen one as a stepping stone to the other, and when that hasn’t worked taken his bat and ball home. That is entirely the wrong attitude. Brough seems to have seen Scotland as a safety net, which again shows the wrong attitude, he should have gone all out and backed himself to play for England and taken it on the chin if not selected or committed to Scotland and been 100% to them. His chopping and changing and comments seem to betray a person doing what is best for themselves rather than their team.

How could you pick a WC with a player who is outright saying they wont play 2nd fiddle? How could you trust them? How could you trust that should they be dropped for whatever reason they would be a positive rather than negative influence on that squad? Especially with the history of being a poor team player and bad influence that Brough has.

If Brough wanted to play for England he should have taken the chance to make himself undroppable, instead his actions have made him unpickable.