We need our players to play at their best, individually and as a unit. Too often we look beaten as soon as we take the field, or as soon as we let in a try. Heads drop and whatever gameplan we had falls to bits in both attack and defence. I know its difficult to generate real confidence based on historic results, but over the course of a tournament like the 4N we need to build belief amongst the team that we can compete and have a chance to win, if not this time then next year.

the fact that we have a number of players in the NRL should get the players out of the mindset of the Aussies being invincible, which has been the biggest problem we have faced in the past.

The problem is the players we have from the NRL - Ellis apart - would not get anywhere near the Aussie or NZ test side.

Both Chase and Heighington are playing for England because their chances of playing for their country of birth is zero. The fact they are playing for England at all is a reflection of the standards available to McNamara.

Eng vs France was, as you say, a trial game. When do any team ever look good when they play a friendly? Eng is essentially a new team, which has been disturbed a lot over the past couple of season due to injuries and new members of the squad. They're still working out combinations and learning about each other's games. For those reasons it looked like a good solid performance to me, just what we needed to see what works and what needs fine tuning.

Oz vs NZ involved a trophy and a cheque at the end of the match. NZ had already lost their first test and have become masters of letting Oz run wild and then timing their performance to when it really matters. There are also high expectations from their fans and officials for Oz to win every single match they play, which in recent comps has lead to them burning out and losing focus when it really matters. NZ didn't need to turn up, they just needed to let Oz do their thing of self-destructing later. NZ also have a terrible record playing over here. They will be most concerned about putting in a good performance over here before the 2013 World Cup.

We've made good progress so far, we have one more trial games of sorts, but with the added impetus of it being part of the comp. NZ and Oz have another game against each other when we will see a very different NZ outfit. They will knock lumps out of each other and it sets us up for Wembley when we should have sorted out our best starting 17 and be mentally prepared. All looking promising to me.

Eng and NZ in the final for me.

I don't agree with your view on the standards of players available to McNamara, but if I were to assume that this is true I would suggest looking at the Welsh RU team. They've never really been about having freakishly good players from 1-15. Of course they do have some stand out players, but on the whole the standards are fairly ordinary. However, they continually punch far, far above their own weight and win comps (or nealy get to the final of the WC!). The reason for this is self belief and also because of how they play together as a team. They always have their combinations right and work hard for and with each other. It isn't always about who you play, but how you play.

These two issues have always haunted England/GB in RL. The teams never truely believe they can do it and cliques have always existed. I hope that McNamara has idenitifed this or that someone like Peacock or Sinfield will step forward and bring the lads round.

In their last tournament on home soil, England were truly competitive against Australia for 40 minutes of the first game and for 60 minutes of the final. The problem was that they were already out of the game first time around and couldn't sustain it the second.

England/GB's home record against New Zealand in recent years is actually pretty good (one World Cup semi-final shellacking apart). There's nothing in this current Kiwi side that IMO suggests England can't turn them over.

If England fail to reach the final I'd regard that as a disappointment personally.

England should do well against New Zealand especially on home soil with a weakened kiwi side.
Australia always appear to have an extra gear or two against England.
In 2009 Australia went to a dominant first half lead and then appeared to go into cruise control, if it was a Horse race they would have been swabbed.

In the second game it was fairly tight in the first half but when Australia put their foot down in the second half the score ended up being a 30 point hiding, nothing close about 16-46, the game goes for 80 minutes usually.

Gareth Widdop played Stand Off all season for the minor premiers, and Jack Reed played centre all season for the team that finished 3rd - I think its fair to say that were they Aussies, they would be in contention for the Australian team.

Not really.
Reed may have come into SOO contention next year but even with the weakness in the current Test team Centres he would not have been picked before Inglis or Tonga.
Widdop would not have been in contention either when you have a certain Darren Lockyer in that spot.
Thurston will take Lockyers spot next year with Cronk moving into the Halfback role.

There is a place for team spirit and the whole being greater than the sum of it parts - but there is no substitute for quality. Belief is great - you might believe you can stop Darren Lockyer having the ability to do it is a completely different thing!!

If the opposition have the same level of belief but better players they will beat you which is what has happened in the past.

RU is a completely different game where the difference in quality are easier to hide - RL is a faster more open game with fewer defenders - quality really tells.

Ill be interested to see how the Kiwis go on Friday but I'm confident the 2 sides will be meeting again in the final. England don't have the quality, talent or coach to finish higher than third place. Wales won't win a game.

other than benji against rangi, who would you say is so much better for new zealand than england? other than the coach i dont agree at all.

The Kiwis have a beatable look about them don't they but they have huge belief and in Marshall a player that could rip us apart on his own.

As a person who's not seen a great deal of NRL recently it'll be interesting to see how good these lads like Locke, Beale and Foran are. If they're as good as billed then they'll have a big say on this tournament.

And yet Tomkins did not last year, despite his big billing.

Put him in the Kiwi side and he'd stand a better chance. We were woeful last year and missing a lot of players.

No excuses this year. He's got as good a group of players around him as he's ever had and he needs to step up. I just hope his head and body are right. He's not going in to this Four Nations in the best of form.