I think McNamara has bucked the trend of previous coach's failures by sticking with the same team throughout the tournament and letting them develop as a group. In the past we've seen too much panic induced chopping and changing which ultimately does not create a team, with predictable results.

Think he has been brave to stick to his guns.

Shame briscoe couldn't have finished his run off by scoring but as has been said, it would probably have been chalked off. He's quick but not a flyer and his main attributes are strength, acceleration and his ability to change direction in full flight

Briscoe was not moving well at all after being caught - I hope he is not badly injured because he definitely wasn't right at the end of the game.

Think it started a good ten mins before his run. I imagine that and the tackle only exacerbated it, though.

I'd agree to an extent, but I fail to see what Heighington adds to the side. Reckon we'd look better with Sinfield at 13 and Widdop at 6.

Thinking about it, you can get rid of that Rovers-biased idiot Wilkin, too.

What I mean is, once he'd picked his squad, he's kept the same 17 apart from where injuries dictated otherwise. Could definitely tweak the squad for next time, though. We've now got a brilliantly promising young set of backs, but he needs to bring younger forwards in as well.

Why change a team thats working aswell as they did last night
When the kiwis looked like scoring england upped the defensive effort
How many times has that happened in previous comps...very few i imagine
And lets be honest the game against the aussies we looked like we could beat them barring the few obvious decisions
One gripe though why did macca put widdop on with 4 mins to go????
I think they stand a real good chance against em at leeds

He got caught by Andy Coley once. Gotta be embarrassing.



Still provides great service to the left flank. Passes that way at least once in every 10 times he has the ball.

We noticed that...

It's been driving us mad for the last two weeks, and I'm sure it's what Tom was hinting at in his numerous "It'd be nice to have a bit more ball" interviews this week.

A notable difference in service to the left wing once since Ellis left the field last week.

At one point in the second half when he once again went inside with Yeamo and Briscoe screaming for it I forgot I wasn't in the East stand and yelled "You twit" with an "a" at the top of my lungs. All the people in the west stand put down their prawn sandwiches and turned around to glare.

Someone gave him a pre-Christmas release copy of Richard Agar's new book "Interchange Your Way To The Top"