So, to summarise

When people are stating that the national side is starting to look stronger for the future, your argument to counter this is that it was weaker in the past

How does that work?

Brilliant!

Too true CGD, I shake my head everytime I hear that 'story'. That game was over before Shenton got knocked out, the rout had already started.

Briscoe plays for the most consistently under-achieving team in SL. Therefore he is the long term solution.

Young Luke has seen the light. Expect Tom to 'Go West, Young Man' before much longer.

Definitely looking stronger. It depends now on how good Macbanana does. It's still a tall order expecting us to win but a close contest would do wonders for our game.

Why does everyone hark back to this team as one that matched the Aussies? That first test was amazing - one of the best matches I've ever been to - but in the following two tests we were thoroughly spanked.

The Aus and NZ over 30's touched up England at home earlier this year.

Personally I can't see any changes come the 4 nations.

I long for a competitive England, imagine any of the big 3 being able to genuinely win this tournament. Would be a huge boost for international RL!

True, rose tinted glasses for some. England were hanging on, not going for the kill.

If you want to beat the Aussies you need to be strong in the 60-80th minute or they will kill you. New Zealand have started doing this, time for England to aim up.

wow some perople really getting angry that i've dared to say we're getting stronger. The passion some fans voices of how we're never going to eabt OZ is astounding.

Look what happened to NZ. Hammered by us in 07, won the world cup in 08, 4N in 2010.

I do agree about the coach though. Not good enough

Again, and I agree with your sentiment in the OP, but the 07 thing is a bit of an exaggeration too. One game we tatered em but the other two were two very close and evenly matched games

True. And i know they had players missing. But we still whitewashed them and i would have said they were a million miles away from becoming the dominant force they are now.

Hardly the same team though, out of the 24 man squad that won the RLWC only 10 of them were on the 2007 tour, and out of the starting 17 in the RLWC Final only 6 of them were on the tour.

It's heading in the right direction isn't it. We're always going to struggle to beat the Aussies on a regular basis but up until the last few years we've always looked capable of shocking them now and again. In recent times we've hardly looked capable of being competative but I think we will be in this series.

Guys like Sam Tomkins, Jones Bishop, Briscoe, Reed, Widdop, Lomax, Graham, Roby, Sam Burgess etc will form the basis of a good side for many years and with us now looking like we're getting some competition for places we look in as good a place at the minute as we've been for a while.

The 2013 World Cup could be really interesting.

But surely this is the point of the thread... a team can have an injection of new talent and turn itself into a world leading team. New Zealand are quite clearly the proof of this