I do think England would have a chance with the best players available but like usual injuries have meant the team just isnt good enough.

Bridge has been great at centre this year,
Mcguire was at the top of his game and is huge loss.
Sinfiled and Eastmond are also big losses, not to mention JP and Morley but I think England still have the forwards to compete.

I think full back could be tomkins best position.
I dont think Lockers will let anyone down. Hes often one of the better players at international level.

I dont think England have a chance in hell, but I would love to be proven wrong.

come on England

Tell ya what , why dont we get rid of these talented youngsters/in form players who are obviously not up to the job of competing with the Southern Hemisphere sides and bring back more experienced players like Wellens,Senior,Long,Gleeson,Wilkin,Deacon,Pryce,Gardner etc etc - surelly they could do a better job ???

FFS we complained for years about having the same old failures playing and demanded sweeping changes , well now we've got them and yet people are still moaning !!!!

But even though the faces have changed the end product is still the same , and in fact the face in charge seems even less confidence inspiring than before

I agree that McNamara and Lowes don't inspire confidence, given their "achievements" at club level. I think, sadly, that as long as we only employ full-time national coaches, then we'll only get those coaches who can't get a club job. This is the first wall between us and better international performance. The national side won't pay as well as a club job, it doesn't offer the same interest as a club job day-in-day-out, and at least with most club jobs you get chance to win a few games. Given that nearly all internationals are now played at the end of the club season, I see no reason why we can't have a part-time national coach. That way, you have a chance of attracting the best coaches to do the job - ie the ones who can hold down a good club job. If that means bunging their clubs a few quid to let them look after the mid-season game v France, then so be it.

Of course, then you hit the second wall - where are the decent British coaches. The Eddie and Stevo overhype machine works just as well for coaches as for players. They'e been saying for years that McDermott has been doing "a great job down in London" (tm). Yetactually, he's been pants, and has taken the first team backwards consistently, while the youth development is bugger all to do with him really. McNamara has used the excuse of player turnover at Bradford, but he's still had some players who he should have got more out of, and Nathan Brown has shown at Huddersfield what good coaching with limited resources can get you. Lowes was a disaster at Warrington, but is still described as a "great young coach" by Sky. Agar at Hull is laughable given the players he's had, and John Kear specialises in spectacular one-offs which culminate in bugger-all. In fact, by far the most successful British coach in terms of actually getting a performance out of a side is Noble. That's tragic.

And finally, the third wall : you could take a top coach who can really shake up a club side, like Tony Smith, Nathan Brown or Michael Maguire, and give them a well-paid part-time contract on top of their club role to take on the job. Yet they're still going to hit the lack of depth in the game which Saddened alluded to earlier. We've got a choice of props, second-rows, and halves who can mix it internationally, but not many of them. So when we lose Peacock and Morley, we're left with Griffin making up the numbers. We're unlucky that Maguire, Pryce and Eastmond aren't out there. We have one international quality fullback - Tomkins; and one hooker - Roby. If they got injured, we're screwed. But the real disaster is - literally - waiting in the wings. We don't have a single international quality threequarter in the UK. Not one. The best we have, on a good day when the pubs are shut, is Gleeson. After him, nothing. Look at the wings and threequarters we've used or are about to use. None of them would get a regular game for any NRL side (as Widdop shows). The best coach in the world can't do much with that.

I don't know what the answer is. If I'm optimistic, I'd say it's because when clubs spend their overseas quota, they tend to go for strike players in the centres, which is why so many of our centres are foreign. This limits places for British centres to get experience and develop. However, if I'm epssimistic, I'd say that clubs go overseas because there aren't any decent British centres. Why ? Because, as others have hinted at in this thread, a strong centre tends to be a very athletic individual. Fast, big, nimble and balanced. Those are the sort of guys who can succeed in any sport they try their hand at. And in the UK, unless they're herded into the private school system where they may find themselves heading into RU, they're going to go into soccer. We'll always get big lads like Graham and Joel Tomkins, and we'll probably carry on getting the speedy dwarves at half-back. Because a pro- soccer club wouldn't look at them. But the centres are all playing with a round ball somewhere. Now that is depressing.

While I agree with much of the sentiment expressed above, I do feel that you are being harsh on the wings in this England squad. Briscoe and Goulding are on the wings tomorrow while the last time we played in Melbourne (200icon_cool.gif we had Gardner and Calderwood... at 21 and 23 years of age respectively, Briscoe and Goulding are far better equipped for international Rugby League than Gardner and Calderwood who offer very little from dummy half and weak defence to boot

As for the centres.... agree 100% but I hope Cudjoe steps up and shows how talented he is (but it is a big ask in a must win international)

I'll reserve judgement on Goulding, but I haven't seen anything other than solid from him. I guess I view threequarters differently from forwards. I'm quite happy to accept that many forwards don't hit their straps until their mid-late twenties. But a top class centre will be a top-class centre from his very early twenties. Newlove, Connolly, Lyons, Folau - these were already stand-out class before they left their teens. Cudjoe I haven't seen enough of. He's clearly fast, but is he a centre ? Does he have the creativity to make the space for his winger, or the power and footwork to go himself ? I don't see that this is a huge improvement on Calderwood and Gardner, and I was always a major critic of both.

I'll be hoping they pull off a shock tomorrow, but I won't be holding my breath. The idea of the Aussie backline running at our guys is giving me nightmares.

Paul Newlove... what would I give to have him facing the Aussies tomorrow for England!

The English backline tomorrow has an average age of 22. There is some talent there; no doubt about that and one or two (certainly Briscoe and Tomkins at full back) can develop into quality international players

The Austrlian backline doesn’t scare me to death either – there is no stand out strike player like Inglis or Folau (as in 200icon_cool.gif... don’t get me wrong, very good players but not terrifying. In fact, I think the Kiwi’s have the strongest backline in the competition

Him and Gary Connelly. BTW what is Gary doing these day's? He was one of the best defensive centre's I've seen play, he should be used in a coaching capacity to help young player's of when to come in and when to stay out.

I agree with a lot of what you have put here, but there are few things i would like to mention.



Correct, we seem to have tried to roll two jobs in to one Director of Rugby and Head Coach. I would like to see them split. To see someone like Ellery Hanley take up a Director of Rugby position, focussing on preparation, player pathways, coach training and the sport-science area of the role. And then a part-time head coach to take the tactic, selection, part of the role.

There arent enough of them. I disagree on McDermott, I think he had earned the opportunity of a shot at a big club, but who next? Very few british coaches get the shot at a top job, we are picking out of a miniscule pool. If we had 10 coaches at SL level, and 20 at semi-pro level then im sure someone would make a name for themselves, but sadly, we dont.

My biggest concern about the 17 is that we have a very inexperienced set of backs, in an untried formulation, with no backs on the bench. So if there are any injuries, or one of the youngsters has a bad game, or we just want to change things round a bit, we're stuffed. That's not smart IMO.
I watched my first test match 30 years ago, but this is the first time I have been absolutely certain that we will lose.

If this is the case then our game has taken one huge step backwards.

Quote: Bigger Daddy "My biggest concern about the 17 is that we have a very inexperienced set of backs, in an untried formulation, with no backs on the bench. So if there are any injuries, or one of the youngsters has a bad game, or we just want to change things round a bit, we're stuffed. That's not smart IMO. I watched my first test match 30 years ago, but this is the first time I have been absolutely certain that we will lose.'" I take it you have blocked out this game then? news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/rugby_l ... 124598.stm And when you look at the balance of the back line and half backs Great Britain put out that day, England tomorrow don’t look too bad 1. Radlinski 2. Johnson 3. Wellens 4. Senior 5. Pratt 6. Sculthorpe 7. Sheridan Wellens in the centre, Pratt and Sheridan... I'll take 2010 please

Quote: Bigger Daddy "My biggest concern about the 17 is that we have a very inexperienced set of backs, in an untried formulation, with no backs on the bench. So if there are any injuries, or one of the youngsters has a bad game, or we just want to change things round a bit, we're stuffed. That's not smart IMO. I watched my first test match 30 years ago, but this is the first time I have been absolutely certain that we will lose.'" I take it you have blocked out this game then? news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/rugby_l ... 124598.stm And when you look at the balance of the back line and half backs Great Britain put out that day, England tomorrow don’t look too bad 1. Radlinski 2. Johnson 3. Wellens 4. Senior 5. Pratt 6. Sculthorpe 7. Sheridan Wellens in the centre, Pratt and Sheridan... I'll take 2010 please