Is it just me who thinks our three quarters would be more effective if we swapped the wingers over? Burgess has played left next to Bateman all year and Ryan Hall can play right wing and plays with Watkins.

Everyone harping on about the halves and redundant three quarters but imo this performance lies solely at the door of McNamara and his game plan, or lack of. You could see from minute one that all we were trying to do was barge up the middle and work off the back of quick plays, which rarely happened.It was the same last week, only reason we won was the fact we were given several penalties and turnover ball at the start of the second period and the Kiwis ran out of steam allowing us to score a couple of barge over tries.Yesterday they smartened up and cut all that out which meant we were made to look clueless.

I'm undecided what i want to see more on saturday, an England grind out win to take the series and McNamara keeps his job, which imo would be disasterous for us moving forward or a defeat which will enforce the changes desperately needed if we are to make the next step and beat the NZ and OZ in big games.

And so the inter club bickering begins.

The wigan contingent were appalling yesterday.

Bateman looked like he'd be better off on the building site and williams was like a school boy amongst men.

The coach has to go after this series. Regardless of who he picks there doesn't appear to be many options in attack and the players don't look confident,a real contrast to when they play for their clubs...this is down to him!.

The coach doesn't even live here, so he can't watch current squad or potential players "in the flesh live" to form judgements?

The loss yesterday was 1 part wrong team selection and 9 parts criminally conservative game plan .


I can only think they saw the rain and said play safety first and wait for the kiwis to spill the ball trying to offload.

Although you could swap a few players round to improve the squad, if this team were coached to play a more expansive game they would have a great chance of winning.

Swapping say McGuie for williams would have had zero difference in yesterday's game.

Not quite there’s one or two, myself included, but apparently it was simply down to the game plan rather than a lack of interaction between payers.

Just reading this thread shows the back-biting between certain clubs & I think it spills over onto the field. The Watkins / Hall combination would have more synergy as their comfortable together at club level.

You're having a laugh aren't you? McGuire is the best big game half back in SL. One of, if not [ithe[/i, best player on the pitch in all three of Leeds' recent finals. And has been their leading HB in a season they won the treble. How he's not in this team is utterly baffling! (and this isn't in hindsight neither, I've been saying this since the squad was announced)

Williams has had a decent season for a young lad but you only have to see the difference between his nothing performance in the GF and McGuire's Harry Sunderland performance to see the difference at the top level. Williams will end up being a decent player but he's not there yet. I'd still have him in the squad for the experience though, he's deserved that much. But to have Matty Smith in that squad and no McGuire and then to see the tactics in the last two weeks shows what this coach knows about halfbacks.

You cannot lay any criticism at any outside backs really neither. The back row was abysmal yesterday, they (in conjunction with the HBs) didn't create any space for the centres or full back to join in the attack in any way whatsoever. I'm not even sure you can blame the back row for their inept performances yesterday neither as I'm laying that at the coach's tactics; which were appalling!

What he said above well said

I feel the key to an england victory next week is for more huddersfield players to be selected.

The worst part about yesterday was that it was a great opportunity to build further interest in the sport in London and we blew it. A woeful "performance" that will drive away many potential fans of the future. McBanana should have been under strict orders to entertain the crowd yesterday.

strange comment