And i've been to games where we've beaten Australia and whitewashed the Kiwis. Whats your point??

The original point was we are improving. 08 was the lowest for me. Quite frankly patheitc and showed us the massive gap we had to catch up.

09 was much improved, for 60 minutes we matched Australia. The remaining 20 minutes blitz showed why Australia are so good.

Last year was very disappointing. We had a lot of injuries to key players. But Mcnamara just can't cut it as coach. Should be DOR becayse he has some good mamagement skills, such as team bonding activities for players last year, England Knights etc. But he can't cut it as a coach.

I do agree with you about the disappointment of yesteryear, we could all name the GB line-up at the beginning of the season for the end of season tour because we hadso little dpeth. Now we can't and we have some good YOUNG talented players coming through, whereas they last 7 years we haven't.

We have been smashed the last 10 years becase we haven't had the young talent coming through. Now we have.

No you havn't.

2010 4 Nations

NZ 24-10 England
Australia 34-14 England

2009 4 Nations

England 16-26 Australia
England 20-12 NZ
England 16-46 Australia

2008 World Cup

Australia 52-4 England
England 24-36 NZ
NZ 32-22 England

2006 was a GB team. Not England.

Two backrowers on the bench and one prop?

Beaten by a cobbled together bunch of ex-NRL players (many on the wrong side of 30) who used to be NRL and/or Aussie/Kiwi international standard but... apart from Thomas Leuluai... no longer are. That's why they are playing in Super League. Still too good for England.

It was a GB team who I saw get beat 34-4 by the Kiwis in 2006. They all just happened to be English too

The points you miss are that our pack gets us into games but our lack of quality elsewhere prevents us from competing. Secondly good halfbacks steer the pack around the field and create a structure of pay that aids the pack in the arm wrestle with the opposition, our lack of quality at half back has made the packs job ultra difficult while our opposing front six enjoy the creativity of their 6 & 7.

Until SL reduces the quota to 1 or 2 overseas players the standards wont increase noticeably. The number of old has been Aussies in SL is an embarrassment and is holding the game back. Reduce it and go for quality then there's a chance things might improve. Use their skills to benchmark younger players and get them involved in coaching and talent spotting.

Also whoever thinks the NRL is full of average players is on something which is not for medicinal purposes. I watch the game week in week out and am astounded at the depth of the talent pool. As for the strength of the England national side increasing, yes but only marginally.

I don't understand this line of thinking, yet people regurgitate it time and time again.

Take out a heap of players (about 60) that are perceived as being better than we've got (and most are) and the quality will go up? Forgetting about where they're from, logically if you take out a chunk of better quality players, the quality will reduce. The youngsters may get better opportunities, but that doesn't mean the quality will go up. They will be playing in a lower quality competition, and then we'll be back to square one of "we can't compete with the Aussies because SL isn't as good as the NRL".

No argument with what you say but even with the aus/NZ players in sl, sl is still a country mile behind the nrl,SL needs to address why that is.

Id love to see us line up

1. Sam Tomkins
2. Josh Charnley
3. Jack Reed
4. Ryan Atkins
5. Ryan Hall
6. Gareth Widdop
7. Jonny Lomax
8. James Graham
9. James Roby
10. Jamie Peacock
11. Ben Westwood
12. Gareth Ellis
13. Sean O'Loughlin

14. Lee Mossop
15. Adrian Morley
16. Chris Heightington
17. Rob Burrow

Mossop must be the long term replacement for Peacock, get him into the side now and lets see what he can do, this should be peacocks last year playing internationals, and with the Burgess brothers we have some depth in the front row.

Backs I would play Charnley over Briscoe, charnley adds size to the backs and has pace to burn. Lomax should be in over brough, he was nothing short of outstanding last week!

Hall and Charnley over Briscoe I just can't agree with.
Burrow and Robinson are pretty similar players, but I'd have to edge with Robinson.
A lot of competition for the centres. I'd be very surprised if Shenton got picked though. He just hasn't looked special at all to me at Saints.
I've not really kept up with Mossop, but he seems to be getting some good reviews. What's he been like?
Is it too early for Luke Burgess do we think?

Pretty fair logic if you set aside the fact that Briscoe is bigger, stronger and faster than Charnley

the beauty of wingers are theres 2 of them on the field....play em both