How true! Just shows how narrow the margins are between winning and losing at top level RL. Never Mac's biggest fan but can't help but feel sorry for him - he nearly got England to the World Cup final and now he's nearly got England to the Four Nations!

Most of the elite players in England are coached by Wane. Nearly all the rest used to be.

Total Number of players in England 2014 4 Nations Squad – 24

Total number currently coached or once coached by Shaun Wane - 8

But I'm sure the other 16 wished they were.

The key word being 'elite'.

Your four first paragraphs are 'presently' unarguable with.
But the fifth in which you state that MacNamara has been shown to be capable of taking tough decisions, for example dropping or promoting to the team, are laughable.

In the last W/Cup he proved precisely the opposite and glaring though it was would not be budged on Chase V Widdop until the semi-final.
Even then it was rumoured, that this was brought about by Chase's poor behaviour rather than a decision from the coach. Widdop proved that he had been the stand off we required throughout that comp in that match, every fan knew it should have been done before, Mac apparently did not.

He would still have had Sinfield on this tour, who has had very moderate to poor form for sometime along on this tour and, would have had him again as captain regardless.
No matter how he would have performed, Mac would have kept that unwarranted faith. Possibly with the excuse of retaining the settled side a descriptive he has used so often previously.

Our team certainly did play so very well V NZ, they could even have won but for two coats of paint sending Widdops kicks the wrong side of the posts.
We did create chances, we did NOT take enough of them.
Watch the try that Oz scored V Samoa, five or six players touched the ball within 8 or so yards, before the try was scored, personally I would have been surprised if our lads would have been able to do so showing the same kind of composure that those Aussies HAD to, to make that score.

Sheen showed Mac how to handle players (yet again) and how to use subs, out of position ones at that, wisely and, to his teams best advantage.

This kind of ability is inbred, you either have it or you don't and I contend that in those areas of coaching, that Mac has probably not got the inbred skills to help his players, the team, from his off field position.
I appreciate that he does not knock on, drop passes, etc, but there are avenues that a good coach should possess inherently and up to this stage of his stewardship, I have yet to see them displayed By Steve MacNamara.

Since Sinfield retired from internationals before this tour you’ll never know for sure if McNamara would’ve selected him.




We bombed as many chances as the Kiwis. We’d have grabbed a draw at the end (a fair result) if we hadn’t needed to go for the win.



TBH you don’t know that for sure – I think the England side has improved quite a bit as the tour went on.




Sheens has been lucky this time. Australia were well beaten in game 1 due to him not selecting enough props. They scraped a win in game 2 and came up against a Samoa that had shot their bolt the previous week in game 3. The Aussies improved as the tournament went on but I think you over rate them.

Samoa played the ref until they got behind too far and I believe that Luelea was penalised at least three times for offences that Aussie players were getting overlooked for.
But they, the Aussies do know how to cash in when the opposition is under the cosh and yet again they did so
when they could.

Sheens has been lucky? Beg to differ.
He did choose poorly for the first match, but when looking like getting beaten by a better English team, in the first half of the second game, he pulled out the master strokes. Made his side play a different game and got the win by a masterstroke of subbing a prop, for an half back, who literally, as Craig Wing used to do, changed the game in their favour.
I accept that there are contentions over the ref but really they won because they had the ability to change the impetus when they were practically down and out.
I am certainly not overrating them at all, we should have beaten , WE DID'NT.

Stopped dead at this post.



That's all for now.

For all the people who want McNamara to stay on.

If your clubs head coach resigned today, would you be happy with McNamara being given the job?

I certainly wouldn't!!

Read the rest now.

People talk as though we are miles away when the reality is we have been a missed tackle and a bad video refereeing decision away from two finals in the last twelve months. This is a mostly young group of players that have made this the best England team since we got rid of GB. Any perceived mistakes made can be learned from by both players and coaches. To make changes to the coaching now could derail all the massive improvements we have made and would only be compounded further if the only realistic option decided he didn't want the job.

Given that there's a world of difference between coaching a club side and coaching an international side, that's a moot point.

Although I suspect you already know that.

I'll take that as a no then.

say what you like McNamara has a history of losing.

people say he's been unlucky 3 times in the last 3 big games. If it happens that often it isn't luck it's a pattern.

and what's he learnt from his time in Australia? How to attack like Wigan.