Yesterday was a stunning performance.

The result has put doubt in out minds.

The coaching is still the same.

This was a good result for Mac.

If Nz Aus is close next week well always wonder wheras if England had got to old trafford and got
battered there would be no calls for Mcnamara to stay on.

Id look much more at game one.

How much difference would Graham and Widdop made in that game coupled with the level of performance shown yesterday.

We should have been bang ready for that game. That was the best route to the final.

Instead with 4 years preparation we didnt know our best team and we were underdone.

Plus the disciplinary stuff shouldnt be happening.

Mac can walk out now with his head up and we can move on positively.

I think he's done a good job.

We've played far better more structured and attacking rugby than we did under smith and noble. The only poor thing has been his media handling.

There are always differences in opinion on team selection, but he has shown that he will change a team if he thinks it is needed.

We played the best as a team yesterday for many many years.

The game was lost yesterday and some very small margins none of which were down to the coach.

Unfortunately professional sport is a results-based business and in his own words, a final appearance was the minimum. So, that is failure?

You really don't get what's just happened do you.

McNamara has proved the doubters wrong myself included - but I'm a big enough man to admit it.

He has created in this tournament a team ethos and pride that simply hasn't existed in the England (GB) shirt since SL and money became the be all and end all of the game and perhaps before that.

It's not McNamara's fault that there is still such a small talent pool in SL or that still so few players play NRL.

Before you point the finger at him and others look at yourself and how giddy you get every time your club (ditto others) sign some past it Aussie in a key position in your team. That's the real problem, greedy chairman, poor Coaches taking easy options and gullible fans thinking all that's Aussie is gold (so to speak).

If McNamara had the riches of the NRL to choose from we'd be finalist now - and we should be close if the SL and especially the RFL had been doing their jobs properly.

Nows the time to increase the comp not shrink it just to give greedy players like Jamie Peacock or mercenary Aussies a bigger share of the wad - because fine words aside that's actually what he means.

If we learn that then McNamara or his successor will eventually triumph.

For now McNamara must stay and be backed all the way. The way he has dealt with the pretenders like Chase, the troublemakers like Hock or the fools like Hardaker shows me a man willing to face down the enemy within and without.

I'm especially pleased with the Chase decision. He could have said Chase had improved and he has and was worth sticking with rather than admitting his boy hadn't really done enough. For whatever reason he didn't, in the most important game of his coaching life he put his pride to one side and made the very brave decision to play Widdop and boy it nearly paid of.

The blokes got guts and that I have to admire. His tactics will only get better now he's proved he can admit a mistake - ditto his selections. Thanks to the NRL his player pool will also improve hopefully.

He must stay for continuity and be allowed to finnish what he has clearly started this WC - that's a team that plays with pride, is willing to learn and play for each other - in other words take it seriously. This set up kept together will return with a massive desire to put yesterday right - that I'm sure of I saw their faces.

...and in the real world

Yes. Well done.

Yes I do get it, we finished THIRD!! If this was his first tournament I would say, yes give him time. But he has had four years! And as I have mentioned, look at his results. How can anyone say they are good. This World Cup is what we have been building up to and we have achieved third.

Mcnamra didn't swallow his pride. That would have been last year and he would have dropped chase then and put in a better more in form half back. Not allowing the MOS to play for Scotland. Maybe if Widdop and Sinfield played more in the tournament together they would have been every better! But they didn't as he kept persisting with Chase.

This was the best England squad for a long time, and we came up short. It was one of the best games of RL I've ever seen. But a semi final in front of nearly 70k at Wembley, we were always going to come out firing.

Mcnamara had done some great things with the team, but as a COACH he has achieved nothing in 8 years st Bradford. surely thats enough to convince anyone. that counts more than good ideas such as yraining camps. How many more years do we have to carry on? He's put many good things in places that he should be congratulated on. But it's time to move on. Get some fresh ideas and a new approach while building on some of the good stuff Mcnamara has done.

I would like to see the list of intersted parties before making a judgement on seeing the back of mcnamara or not.

Quite seriously, who gives a rats what he did at Bradford? It has absolutely zero relevance to his performance as England coach.

The results against Australia and NZ were 20-28 and 18-20. England could and perhaps should have won both. The end was the same, but I assume you have seen GB/England absolutely smashed by both those teams? Quite recently in fact. I've seen us get hammered in Brisbane - absolutely humiliated. With players like Peacock, Morley, Harris, Long et al in the side. This England team is light years better then the last one to come down under.

But any improvement is somehow all down to the players and nothing to do with the coach. Really? He had 'four years' to prepare? Again, really? With his full squad available on a regular basis? Even half his squad? Even half his squad being able to play regular competitive matches? Or was it more like a few catch-up sessions with players when he could get them?

As for Chase, until literally a few weeks before the WC, there seemed very little chance that Widdopp would have been fit. So as a good coach did, he would have planned with Chase and Sinfield. If you take Widdopp out of the equation, all the other names bandied about for 7 are frankly laughably poor.

You can argue - understandably - that he could have dropped Chase a week earlier (I would have agreed with that), but to suggest he should have started with Widdopp against Australia for instance is barmy.

Which brings us to the other load of tosh. Brough is responsible for not even being considered for England. McNamara didn't force him out. He was told he wasn't an automatic selection. How bizarre for a coach to do that with a player who hasn't achieved anything much at all in a ten-year career.

It was Brough who took his bat home and decided he was Scottish rather than try to force his way into the squad and then the team by delivering performances that would demand his selection. So if you want to bag anyone or Brough's absence, bag Brough, pseudo-scot-dummy-spitter extraordinaire.

I'm 100% certain McNamara has made mistakes. But blaming him for the results without looking at the quality of the performances is not fair, suggesting that a narrow-heartbreaking defeat is the same as an embarrasing hiding is ridiculous, and suggesting that Brough wasn't solely responsible for his non-selection is laughable.

Well said. I cant argue with any of that.

Yup, he picked has beings in the past and this years squad was the best by a long distance (even taking into account Crabtree & Brough's omission), we should have beaten the Australians in the first match and thus we wouldn't have had the NZ match which we should have won anyway.
HIS mistakes are the difference between winning and losing here, the quality of players we had this time around made ALL the difference in the scores compared to last time.
HTH