Fact is we were closer to the Aussies in the Ashes series in the late 80's and 90's then now, and that was with rugby that wasn't like watching paint dry. Compare that dirge today with this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d4IYW4kwrQU

Fact is we were closer to the Aussies in the Ashes series in the late 80's and 90's then now, and that was with rugby that wasn't like watching paint dry. Compare that dirge today with this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d4IYW4kwrQU

Mr Bennett has been touted on this forum many times as being the best coach on the planet. I do wonder though if the NRL tag has coloured his vision & made some of our players believe their own hype.

Perhaps Bennettus Maximus will be starring in the next Russell Crowe epic.

Until we get back to a format of tour sides and test match rugby, international league is dead in the water. There are two teams world wide, which is not good enough. Return to GB format and we stand a chance of resurrecting the international game. The RFL have diluted the pot so far it is now unworkable.

Lomax - Solid, had his best game for England against the Aussies and looks as though he's settled into the team.

Hall & McGilvary - Brilliant again

Percival - All the attributes to be a world class centre but not not ready for test level rugby yet

Watkins - Showed glimpses of that he is capable of. A bad season at club level knocked his confidence maybe? It shouldn't really matter in all honesty, very disappointing

Brown - utterly speechless. waste of space.

Widdop - Bang average. Matty Smith offered us more at 7.

Williams - was on the field for a shorter amount of time than Widdop or Brown and still looked better than both of them combined.

Hill, Graham, Coops, Whitehead - Tough, no nonsense go forward workhorses and more than matched their opposite number.

Bateman - Love as a player. No fear in him what-so-ever. I love his anger.

Slammin Sam - Been trying far to hard this series. needs to let go of the past and concentrate on his natural game.

Twins - Not going to lie.... Awful. Ball hangling skills are non existant and their fitness looks shot at. Taylor on the bech would have been better.

Hodgeson - showed glimpses of quality but other than that average.

Clark must be injured to leave him out. I've been very disappointed in how he has been used off the bench in this series. All in all England looked flat footed throughout most the game, not running onto balls and opened up by simple drop offs and tip ons. Come the 4th tackle it took that long for the ball to reach a half back the convict defence was already up in their face and closed any chance of anything down.

One thing I did think though is that after Graham & Sam starting dishing the biff out for 5 minutes after the Aussies looked soft. They don't like it one bit. I'd be inclined to roughing them up and niggling every tackle. They love a clean structured game, it's simple to stop them having it.

Also Hicks is a Scheißhaus. Cameron Smith did nothing but moan/whinge/complain about every decision. He effectively reffed the game himself.

not sure about lomax, he's looked ok during the series, but i do wonder about them passes yesterday, did percival overrun them all? likewise did mcgilvray or was lomax passing badly and behind them?


PS i dont like having lomax in the team as it makes me think someone has stuck chris hill in the drier for too long. Can we get him a different scrum hat.

Did anybody really expect us to win this ? i suspect most people were simply hoping to beat NZ and get to the final.

It's a warning to RL in the UK. We need to strengthen the grass roots, get more kids into the game. With a larger base we can hope to bring out a few more top quality players and start to challenge the southern hemisphere again.

Supporting both Wires and England I'd have to say:

"I've got a good feeling about 2017....."

Exactly.
Scrap the Magic Weekend, and start the season a week or two earlier.

Then go to Aus for a proper 4/5 week tour. If the clubs have to do without their International players for those weeks then so be it, it's why they have squads.
To make it a bit more even you could stop clubs playing some of their overseas quota players whilst the tour is taking place.

i.e. If say Wire had three players on tour then whilst they were away their opponents would have to forfeit three overseas players from their squad for their Wire games.

Also everyone is heaping praise on the Aussie half-backs, but it all starts with the #9. Cam Smith is a genius in that position, no endless dummy half scoots and then get tackled. We haven't produced a decent passing/controlling English hooker since Martin Dermott. some of the passing from the floor in the Superleague is atrocious. Look at how good Wire were when Monaghan was at #9, how much better Wigan were with Riddell.

Do you honestly believe what you have posted?

Please tell me which Wales/Scotland/Ireland players would walk into this England squad and improve it enough to be able to match the Kangaroos? An extra blue stripe on the shirt won't mean the players are any better...

England have a better squad (though we continue to select on reputation than form and pick players out of position) than they have for years, were facing a very efficient but unspectacular Aussie side, and we served up a lukewarm, passionless, unimaginative, error-strewn, lethargic pile of rot that was the best advert for rugby union in years. It really was that bad.

From Wayne Bennett's charmless interviews, to soulless half-empty stadiums, five-drives and a rubbish kick rugby it was painful to watch in a way that rugby league should never be.

What's the answer? WB said the players need to address their mental shortcomings, and I would agree with that. However, given the worst performers yesterday were regulars in his beloved NRL it's hard to know where to begin.

Agree with all but one part of this - that is the squad. I believe we have had much more individually talented/better individuals in the past. Players with flair, pace, skills and real grit.

The 1992 GB Touring part reads like a Who's Who.

Andy Gregory, Shaun Edwards, Schofield, Ellery Hanley, Hampson, Newlove, Offiah, Betts, Clarke, Andy Platt, Joe Lydon, Lee Jackson, Lee Crooks, Harrison etc

They managed to beat Australia once in the series 33-10. This was against a real handful Australian side with ET, Daley, Meninga, Langer, Sironen, Clyde, Lazarus etc.

Until we get talent like that again we won't get anywhere near them. And to think all this talent flourished whilst being played in ty winter conditions, 4 cups per season, in crappy stadiums and before full time professionalism and the mumbo jumbo of the modern robotic game. Damn sight better to watch too - probably why for the 1994 Home series there was an aggregate attendance of 140,000 watching across 3 games with nearly 60,000 in the Capital.

Makes you think. Hard to argue the International RL is not dying a slow death under Nigel Wood.

Yes RD, the international scene is a shadow of its former self!

For me the biggest single cause of the stagnant state of international rugby league is frankly the attitude of Australia. The Australian rugby union team has played 12 games and counting this year - they will play England 4 times. Folau now has 50 caps in 3 years and doesn't look too burned out to me. How international rugby league thinks it can grow without very regular GB v Aus series I have no idea.

And I do think having a GB team is important. Yes, the players will often be exactly the same as England but you're giving the country as a whole the chance to join in with it, not shut down any support from Scotland, Wales and Ireland. I apply what could be called the Radio 4 Today Programme test - what is more likely to get a preview feature - the Four Nations or a three match series against the Kangaroos under floodlights in big stadiums in the north and (possibly) Wembley that evokes memories in others of rugby league being a passionate sport?

Our sport desperately needs international success for an English team. It would generate exposure and additional sponsorship like cricket, RU, cycling have seen over the last 13 years. This will attract more viewers and paying supporters.
I could go on all day about what is wrong but will start with the international calender.
I agree with the post above about scrapping the magic weekend. We should use that weekend to play internationals combined with a tournament similar to the Auckland 9's. So you could have Scotland v Wales and then the next day England v France mixed in with a club 9's tournament. If we were clever with the NRL we could co-incide it so that NZ or Samoa, / PNG came over every couple of years if there was a break in the NRL calender for state of origin. As the challenge cup is seeded then the next weekend could be the challenge cup but over the same weekend would be another round of internationals. The same thing could happen down under so when SOO is on then the Pacific Islands can play or they have a 9's comp.
We played Oldham in the first round of the CC and I am sure we could have done without HILL, Currie, Clarke and Ratchford whilst they were on international duty.

They just need to get a proper calender sorted out across both hemispheres that develops the international game.

If Roger Draper is any good maybe he can turn round the fortunes of Rugby League with his high profile connections from his days at Wimbledon....good publicity & marketing could work wonders for a start. Maybe then our coaches could get away from the Aussie style template & start playing open rugby again.
To be honest though, i think it was a sad state of affairs that there was not even a token Royal at a match played on Remembrance Day...a disgrace in fact when the usual slot can be found to watch the other code.These are teams drawn from the same working class stock that were mindlessly sent "over the top" to the glory of their commanders sat miles away in safety.

Good post. Pre Super League the calendar was much more hectic :

Lancashire Cup
John Player Cup
Challenge Cup
Premiership

and tours to Australia which featured about 12-14 games.

These were games played in winter conditions too, without the number of interchanges either.

Do you think we may be mollycoddling our full time professionals a little and perhaps they are able to play more games per season ?

Quote ="ninearches"If Roger Draper is any good maybe he can turn round the fortunes of Rugby League with his high profile connections from his days at Wimbledon....good publicity & marketing could work wonders for a start. Maybe then our coaches could get away from the Aussie style template & start playing open rugby again. To be honest though, i think it was a sad state of affairs that there was not even a token Royal at a match played on Remembrance Day...a disgrace in fact when the usual slot can be found to watch the other code.These are teams drawn from the same working class stock that were mindlessly sent "over the top" to the glory of their commanders sat miles away in safety.'" We need to replace the Humpty Dumpty Nigel Wood who has presided over this nonsense both at RFL and RLIF. In his 9 years as CEO of the RFL do you feel the game has got stronger or weaker? Some of his key work 2001 - Strategic Review (he authored) - Remind me how many teams have gone into liquidation since then? Stobart Sponsorship fiasco. 2015 announced the 2021 Strategy which has already failed. https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2015/ ... ts-england

Quote ="ninearches"If Roger Draper is any good maybe he can turn round the fortunes of Rugby League with his high profile connections from his days at Wimbledon....good publicity & marketing could work wonders for a start. Maybe then our coaches could get away from the Aussie style template & start playing open rugby again. To be honest though, i think it was a sad state of affairs that there was not even a token Royal at a match played on Remembrance Day...a disgrace in fact when the usual slot can be found to watch the other code.These are teams drawn from the same working class stock that were mindlessly sent "over the top" to the glory of their commanders sat miles away in safety.'" We need to replace the Humpty Dumpty Nigel Wood who has presided over this nonsense both at RFL and RLIF. In his 9 years as CEO of the RFL do you feel the game has got stronger or weaker? Some of his key work 2001 - Strategic Review (he authored) - Remind me how many teams have gone into liquidation since then? Stobart Sponsorship fiasco. 2015 announced the 2021 Strategy which has already failed. https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2015/ ... ts-england

I think it's unfair (and too easy) to attack one man. Rugby League has some real problems which are almost impossible to solve. Even Donald Trump might find it a bit of a challenge. Biggest problem is its limited appeal and so lack of money. I love the game and its in the blood but I have struggled to convince the non-believers.

Yes I am aware of the challenges, but even to get back to the international game of the mid-90's would be a start. It's about realising the current strategy is going nowhere. I really don't know what the problem was then that we are attempting to solve now.

The appeal in the heartlands remains the same, just the focus is on the white elephant of expansionism.

In 1995 Rugby Union went Professional. They almost immediately had loads more money than us. Hundreds of young players and some older players think ... I'll play Union. So we wouldn't be able to keep the likes of Sean Edwards, Jiffy, Connolly, Newlove, Offiah in Rugby League. If you look at current England RU team at the attacking heart are Farrell and Ford (both from League stock but they've never played the game). We have really lost out to Union since 1995.

One of Rugby Leagues best sources of players was turned off over night...Welsh Rugby Union.

Dead right about the Welsh talent we used to nab. No one sums up the change better than Va'aiga Tuigamala. He was one of the best runners in the world in Union. At the time the only place to make any money was in Rugby League. So he signed for Wigan (as did Frano Botica). Obviously they didn't play for England or GB ... but it shows just how Rugby League captured the very best players in the world. They both quickly changed games when the floodgates were opened.

Doesn't really matter which ones do, if any. The country i live in isn't England, i live in Great Britain which is part of the two country union of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. The nationality on my passport is not English it is British. I am not an Englander i am a Briton.

Plus with Tyson Frizzell being Welsh would he not get into the Great Britain team?

but for argument's sake let's say Rhys Evans and Ben Flower were good enough to play for Great Britain, they can't play for England but they can play for Great Britain.

I watch highlights packages of RL on Youtube and lament how scripted and lifeless the sport has become to be honest. Our chances of growing are shrinking