[i"I'm really pleased, fullstop, with the whole exercise.

"We've come across 12,000 miles, we've done things slightly different this time, we've got an extremely tough game under our belts.

"We're absolutely where I thought we would be."[/i





England are allegedly the third best side in the world right now.

Yet they were made to look very ordinary by a side that arent even a country in their own right.

So maybe jet lag was to blame? I'm not sure when they flew... someone said about a week ago...on Air New Zealand.


Sure, Air New Zealand is not Qantas. But I'm sure they all went business class.

I've done Sydney to London and back business class before and I felt fine by the next day. The food is good, you can lie down, your ankles dont swell up and its a nice experience. Sure, economy is a bit of a grueller and it takes a week or so to feel totally back to normal... but when you are down the pointy end you can sleep for most of it.

Stacey Jones managed it ok a few years ago. He was backwards and forwards between the northern and southern hemispheres weekly from what I remember.

And Jarrod Sammut hopped off the plane and got man of the match for Crusaders on his debut if I'm not mistaken?

So how on earth can the england coach be 'really pleased'?

They have played 2 games so far... both of which they realistically should have won at a canter.



Shocking.

Interviews: www.englandrl.co.uk/article.php?id=19301&ref=nf

Interviews: www.englandrl.co.uk/article.php?id=19301&ref=nf

McNamara's team throws away a winning position and is lucky to scrape a draw.

He then goes on about how positives taken from the game and blah blah blah

I'm a Bradford fan and we've put up with the rubbish he comes out with for the last 4 years

Lets be honest.

The only positive from that game was that England didnt lose.

England were very impressive for the opening half of the game. Who knows how much of the second half was tiredness, how much was McBannana experimenting as reserving the energy levels of key players and how much was the usual inept rubbish we see from England.

The little scrotey Tomkins had a good game, his brother though looked completely out of his depth.

news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/rugby_l ... 222509.stm

news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/rugby_l ... 222509.stm

Exactly, a few years ago Manly came over to England (a proper team who play with eachother week in week out) and in their first match only just scraped through against Quins in a warm up....then went on to play well in the World Club Challenge (winning it if I remember correctly)... lets just see how England do when the matches matter shall we?

I agree on the point that jet-lag can't be used as an excuse. I read someone say they played 4 or 5 days after arriving, if this is true, then how many bloody more days does one need to get over jet-lag?

The real excuse is reasonable enough, that the players who came off, particularly S. Tomkins, affected England's play too much for the worse.

Depends on what you are trying to excuse and how gullible you think people are!

I flew to Tenerife in August, and I still don't think I'm ready to play International RL.

Jet lag is supposedly worse when you go from west to east, and I've done the long haul from London to Auckland. Let me tell you that it's no fun whatever class you're in. For much of the trip I had three seats to myself, call me greedy, and even that took a few days of re-adjustment. It has been suggested the ratio for successfully catching up with jetlag is 1 day to 1 hour of time difference.

Forget the jet lag, though, I'd rather we had a tough encounter against the Maori's and work on some set plays, rather than thump Wales/France again and get nothing out of the match. Lets not forget, the back line is still very inexperienced, at international level, we hadn't included Graham or Fielden in the front row and Morley went off quite early on.

Considering the season Gleeson has just had and the inexperience of England's backline, it seems strange he wasn't taken out as part of the squad.

I doubt the Maori ever played a poor match. Especially at home.

This thread shows the lack of insight many have for the history of this team. Hopeless. And an embarrassment to the history of the Maori in rugby league.

We did used to fare better against the Aussies when we went by boat...

Morley's out as well now then? Doesn't look to good for us.