This. It's not Bennett dropping ball, making terrible kicks and the wrong decisions. We need players who can do the job and if the ones in the squad can't then they need replacing.

It also means players like Williams and Percival really need to up their games if they want to feature down the line.

As an aside, I'd love to know what Betts and Anderson bring to the team.

Wasn't Bennett meant to eradicate those things? Other coaches have been criticised for their failure to beat says and NZ and at the end of the day Bennett is 0-4 against them. All he's done in my eyes is found a different way to lose to Australia, we may not ship as many points against them but matters little if the attack is as poor as it's been.

I do on that final point. Personally, I'd have liked to see what a Bennet/ Powell combo could have done at this WC. Bennet obviously knows his defensive structures and maybe Powell would have got more points out of the backs. Too late now though.

Bennett's successful coaching has come off the back of a good defence for 80 mins and a good pivotal spine at 1, 6, 7 and 9. I,ve been very critical all year with our England Coach, but I can see where he is coming from over the last 2 games, a high completion rate via minimum amount of errors puts you in a winnable position against the best teams.
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He's been critical of the Superleagues lack of skills and intensity for quite a while now, more has to be done on English Soil to raise the standard of the game, for 30+ games we play pretty much arm wrestle style with dumb plays, I don't think Bennett can "flick a switch" to get all the players playing one particular NRL style type of rugby, its got to be done in our own back yard before we can fine tune for future international competition.

England made a lot of errors today but still competed. That's real progrsss. The fact we ain't got players to fill a couple of key positions is all that cost us. Bennett can't do anything about that.

Hope he goes. How can you go to a world cup with only 2 centres and 2 wingers then play an undersized 2nd row in the centres?Heighington and T Burgess had no place in that team along with Brown .The team played great today and almost did enough but had zero threat on the left. This perception that the nrl is so far ahead is bollox it's just last year's performances in superleague counted for nothing.Bennett is a rude blinkered dinosaur and can go tiddle himself as far as I'm concerned

The Burgess lads should go over there to sort out their ball retention...

Slightly stunned by any one that wouldn't want bennet to stay on

That's about as close as we have being to beating them in as long as I can remember, we were a couple of % away from beating them today

A couple of errors at crucial times (tom burgess)
Bateman not being able to pass a ball (his defence and effort were outstanding though) so it's cruel to point a finger at him
Losing S O'L, he could have being the difference today

Regardless of the Bateman, lomax and brown selection issue, he worked with what he had and nearly got us there

Perhaps with more time he will
I hope he stays on

For what its worth i hope Wayne Bennett stays on as coach.

Good post.

Its become a bit of a cliche in the modern game, but you really do have to "earn the right" to play the expansive stuff, and you do that by running hard, completing your sets and earning field position. You can try to give the ball air from off the back foot if you want, but it generally doesnt end well. 99% of what England did yesterday was perfect for a test match. But having done the groundwork they panicked when they got a chance to attack.

I really don't think it's coincidence that we have more NRL based players in the England setup than ever and us being able to compete like we did today