It's exactly what he's done and it's the reason we stand no chance of winning this World Cup IMO. He has backed himself in to a corner with both. Firstly he's selected a guy in Sinfield as captain when he should be far from a certain starter but now he has to and he picked a Kiwi in Chase to play for England and seems to feel he has to keep justifying the decision by playing him.

He'll say he's trying to breed continuity but I don't think that works in a sport where you only play 3 or 4 games a year maximum. You need to pick your best players and your form players and IMO the halfback pairing should have been Widdop and Matty Smith. The season that Smith has had had got him on cloud 9 and his confidence must be sky high. He can do the things Sinfield can with the boot but had more zip to his play.

I'd love to be proved wrong but I think we'll now out with a whimper in the semis and that has to be the end for McNamara. We don't need a full time and I'd be happy for Shaun Wane to take the job on alongside his Wigan role.

No, can't wait to watch Micky Mac rip in. Doubt we'll see the Fijians try and bully him!!

No need for apologies either.

Just watching the Scotland v USA on Premier Live. Hope the rugby is better than the singing of the anthems.

cracking game so far. really enjoying the expansive game the scots are playing.

brough just shown why mcnamara is an idiot. regardless of the pen, that was great creativity.

Fair play to you, stuck to your nationality and avoided our pi$$ poor coach and the circus that's following him!

I think Pettybourne must have played all but about 10 minutes of that game which is ridiculous for a prop forward.

A little bit of fitness work for Pettybourne should see us with a really good prop on our hands. He just keeps rolling forward and will be an excellent partner for Ben Flower.

Better than Sinfield, Chase, Widdop and Burrow. Such a shame the England coach couldn't see that.

Crap in the play off series done bugger all against very average opposition in the World Cup.

Should be nowhere near the England team.

I cannot understand the principle of bugging up Brough, but ignoring Matty Smith.

Right wing, hooker and half back for USA would all do a great job in Super League.

Yes I agree, his stubborn-ness with regards to those 2 has left one SL dreamteam half back with a Man of Steel, league leaders and League writer's player of the year alienated and playing for Scotland, and the other, with a SL winners ring, challenge cup medal and lance todd trophy under his belt sat at home. Melbourne's first choice 6 is limited to a few cameo 15-20 minute appearances off the bench. Meanwhile England are beng guided round the pitch by a Kiwi who doesn't look capable of playing to a structure and a 33 year old who's played most of his career at 13.

Don't get the love for Widdop, from what I can gather it seems to be a case of 'if he plays for a top NRL side he must be good'
Do people actually watch the NRL and Storm? Widdop is very much a support player and at times no more than a foil for Billy Slater.

Storm are ran by the '3' Smith to Cronk to Slater, Smith and Cronk run the show with Slater linking in the line with Widdop often dropping back or moving to allow Slater to play.

So how does this relate to England? We need two halves who run the show, who can create and run the time, Widdop has very little experience of this, at least Chase and Sinfield both run their club teams from the halves.

The only way I can see Widdop in the halves is if you play the 'Storm way' Sam to play the Slater role taking on more of the plays, this would mean Roby would have to play as well as C Smith running the team with a 7 to match Cronk at running a team, do we have the personnel in our squad to do this? Debateable.

St George must have been taken in by the hype as well then because they've been prepared to throw huge money at him, on a long term deal and didn't mind letting Soward leave on the back of his signing. He has also been keeping Finch out of the team at Melbourne and we know what a good player he can be.

He's not in the class of the other three you mention but who is? He is certainly a better player then Chase.

I remember saying during the 2011 4N that the Sinfield/Chase combination was nullfying Sam's threat from FB. I do watch the NRL and I'm not just picking Widdop because he plays in Australia. He plays for a team that plays to a structured attack that allows Billy Slater to chime in and get his hands on the ball, in a similar style to how Wigan have played, allowing Tomkins to atatck from deep from fullback.

Sam has been one of, if not the best player in SL playing this role for 4 seasons now, playing alongside 4 different regular half back combinations (Deacon/Leuluai, Deacon/Finch, Finch/Leuluai, Green/Smith), showing that it isn't really important WHO plays in the 6/7 role for Tomkins to be effective, just that they can play to the correct attacking structures. Smith, Brough and Widdop are all capable of this, and they are also able to play what's in front on them when the structured plays are closed down. Sinfield is too slow to be an international half and Chase is too unpredictable. It's really disappointing that 2 years on from first saying this, we still have the same problems.