But you have to look at the complete tenure of Tony Smith to judge if he was successful as the England coach. The way we performed in the world cup, and the first halves of both the French and the Kiwi match, yes we did look like a pub team. Granted we played well in the scond halves and the last two matches BUT consider all the matches that he held the coaching position.

I think tad might have been referring to the World Cup rather than the 4 Nations.

i was mate yes.
there were signs of improvement in the 4 nations although there was some off the wall selections and to much chopping and changing

I think you are really using rose-tinted glasses here. You are using the scoreline to at a point in time to suggest that the game was close - just as you did for the WCC against Manley. The difference was the Aussies were doing what was required to keep in the game whilst we were full out - as soon as the Aussies upped their game we disintigrated - the scoreline seldom lies and the quality of the plays from the Aussies showed the gap in ability.

We could have kept Sinfield where he was and the scoreline would have been the same - we never had the ball once Slater had scored.

We are short of whole backline - a hooker of really quality, two props that is how close we are.

Ah, sorry tad!

no worries bud

I'd agree, and I think thats a failing of Smith in that when he was at Leeds we looked as disorganised but we had the right players to pull that off.
Obviously we cant do that at International level.
Im more annoyed at Smith for resigning than I am at the mistakes he's made.

Were they? So they were deliberately playing below their potential for 65 minutes of the game?


I thought the Aussies kept doing exactly the same as they'd done all game. I saw it more as we let in a soft try to take it to a 12 point lead and then had some bad luck with Shentons injury, and lost our focus a bit. They scored again while we were unfocused and then we tried to get back into the game with short kick offs. None of which worked. If we hadnt done those short kick offs the score would have been different.


True, it seldom lies. This time it did.


Some tries were great, some were more just good vision and athleticism. Especially those near the end when we'd collapsed and they were on a roll.


We have a good pack. That much is obvious or we'd have been murdered in every game against both the Aussies and the Kiwis. I agree we're lacking a hooker and are also obviously lacking in the centres. But they aren't as far ahead as you seem to take great delight in announcing. If they were we wouldn't have beaten the Kiwi's and would have had 60 or 70 put on us.
The biggest difference for me is their confidence. Both mentally and their confidence with the ball. They look far more comfortable passing quickly and when they do pass it is invariably quicker and more accurate than ours.

Nail on the head and nobody has been more vociferous in his criticism of Smith than David in the past so this post speaks volumes to me.

If Smith were to blame David wouldn't have hesitated to say so.

I thought the team played with a great deal of pride and played as a team - Smith must take some credit for that - the second half in game one was very encouraging - he was also prepared to make the tough decisions - correctly dropping McGuire and Smith.

All in all Smith can be proud of what his team achieved IMO - there is simply not substitute for real ability - when the Aussies needed to they had another 3/4 gears - simply the finest rugby side in the world bar none in either code.

Agree also. The quality of players simply isn't available in too many positions. Individually I'd say we have 3/4 of the best forwards in the world - Ellis, Burgess and Graham would not look at all out of place in the Australian lineup. When you look at other young forwards around the place, in terms of the props and second row I don't think we look too shabby going forward, and replacing Morley and Peacock won't cause us as many problems as it once would.

But in key playmaking positions we're way behind - Tomkins and Eastmond are nothing like complete halfbacks yet, we haven't apparently got a single SL hooker who combines both a good rugby brain and snappy distribution, and our outside backs are average at best.

Even if we do magically produce athletes of the right calibre - like Senior - the problem doesn't stop there, because I've seen him flummoxed by pretty basic plays against Aus, simply through the speed and quality of execution. The issue there is not facing that quality regularly.

You also cannot ignore failing to compete for the full 80 minutes. Watching Leeds in recent years against 'lesser' sides we see this regularly - sides seem to do pretty well for some time but lose by 20+ at the end. It's exactly the same problem - inferior players will always struggle to compete for the whole game. Inglis could afford to go to sleep for 10 minutes against England - Bridge could not switch off for the entire game.

Agree significantly higher skill levels - they can do what we do only much faster and more accurately - how many of our passes were behind the receiver by the time he got the ball ?

Too much chopping and changing. No there wasn't. What we have deosn't work. So try something different. As they say, soo what you always do and you'll get what you always get. Which in this case is our @rses handed to us.

We lost focus for a while and they took advantage and scored the try to put them 3 scores ahead, then we tried to get back into the game via a short kick off? At least 3, maybe 4 I cant remember now. If we had played it safe and settled for a 12-16 point loss by kicking long from the kick off we wouldnt have conceded at least 2 maybe 3 of those last few tries. Then the scorline looks a lot more respectable.


Yes and we put 20 on them in one half.
The game 2 weeks ago was a much better representation of how far ahead they are than the Final in my view.
They have huge strength in depth in nearly every position, their skill levels are higher, and they have much stronger mentality than us.
But that doesnt mean they are miles ahead and that we are awful
They are obviously better, but not by a huge amount just in a couple of vital areas that comes from having a more intense competition and having a state of origin series which is something we need.


Yep, its one of the things that annoys me intensely, because its something that is solved so easily, you simply practice more. It's something I was critical of Diskin for in previous years but he seems to have improved his passing from dummy half. It just slows down and almost nullifies our already slow attack.

For me the pattern followed that of many super league games, with a big team, and a smaller team.

Small team starts of very quick high tempo, maybe takes a lead, and its a close game for 60 mins.

Better team gets a try, and is 2 scores ahead, then suddenly the floodgates open.

I've seen leeds do that time and time again over the 12 years Ive been watching.

however, I have also seen times when the good start by the small team is rewarded with more than a 6 point lead, and it can quite quickly turn into a bad day at the office for the big team.

Had Burgess have set Tompkins free at 6-0, we could have had a giant killing on our hands.

The score is not the only reflection on the game we should look at.

Yep. If we could have got more than one score ahead with a bit more luck and some more favourable reffing at vital points we could have won.
It wouldn't change the fact they are still ahead of us, but may bring a bit more perspective to the arguments than simply the scoreline.

Exactly. For a SL parallel, see Salford or Quins at home.

It has been noted that Emma has not answered my questions yet!

That is because Emma is a very VERY busy person Ricky,
Which question....the one about the French.

England were very poor in the first half. That is no disrespect to France, just a fact. The second half they played well, yes, but I had a negative feeling after the match, seeing just how bad England can play.

So we're not that far behind and yet you're comparing the gap between England and Aus to that between Leeds and Salford? The gap both ways is immense - which is half of the problem in SL.

It is so obvious - pity some on here cannot believe what happens in front of their very eyes

Unreal - if absolutely everything had gone in our and the Aussies had failed to perform we might have got closer!!!

Reffing decisions - pity you didn't apply that logic to the second half of game one - Ganson penalised the Aussie to death

I agree. The performance even at 16-14 wasn't good hence why I posted this.



Meaning that had we fluked the win opinions on here would have been different. People would have failed to see that the performance was not great as it would have been glossed over by the win.

Agreed - for me there are bigger coaching issues in British sport - it appears we are coaching athletes with great speed and stamina who can run fast for a long time - we are not coaching the skills required to play the game at the really elite level.

Look at RU, Soccer and RL and our players lack the skill level you would expect from fulltime elite players.

Anyone who watches Leeds Utd must cringe at the inability of players to do the basics - how often are players incapable of kicking a corner over the first defender - and these issues are prevelant in PL too.

The difference in skill levels between the Aussies and us is significant - the difference they are also physically as fit and quick as us.

The less said about England RU the better - laughing stock would be an apt description

It's what happens when you have players spending the first 8-10 years of their playing lives being taught the game by the parents of one of the team.

By the time the biggest, strongest and quickest kids get dragged out of the amateur game and onto pro scholarships they should already have the basic skills mastered. Sadly for most, they don't.

We can moan about the standards of coaching at elite levels, team selection etc all we like, but the sad fact is that the standards of coaching in the junior game in this country simply aren't good enough to prepare kids for the professional arena.