Seemingly, if the excellent effort against the Aussies is any sort of a benchmark.

Who'da thunk it?

Yeah, who would have thought a professional coach could take what is supposed to be the best players in the country and turn out a loss like that?

Excellent effort? What were you watching, they were hopeless.
Pathetic and mentally weak like everyteam and squad compilled by McNamara.

I think a fairer analysis is somewhere between FA's and Mick's opinions.

I thought England started well but lacked a killer instinct. I also thought McNamara went into the game with a bench that was too lightweight. That cost us.

I think we also need to be wary of making judgements based on single performances, the really important game is next week.

Yes, unconvincing wins over weaker sides. Followed by a hammering at home to a decent oufit who lost their best player after a few minutes. Macnamara at his finest.

Poor effort FA. Your standards a slipping.

And you really call somebody else that? Think somebody needs to take a look a little closer to home.

Nobbys quote off the Beeb RL site

"The referee's decisions weren't in England's control. They will be talking about the things that were in their control. At times they lost the ball on the floor and at times they missed tackles on the fringes. Absolutely those two decisions could have changed the game, however England have got a whole lot more improvement that they can take care of themselves for next week against New Zealand

Well summed up!

Well summed up and total fantasy the tram were pants yep the decision went against them for the try but thats how it is sometimes, the high tackle was not a sending off IMHO I do think he hit the arm first.

No godd trying to gloss over a team that was poor with refs decisions. too many passengers for my liking.

Wait til he's been in charge 4 years we'll be getting stuffed by Canada.

Seriously, the performance was very reminiscent of his Bulls career. A decent effort in the forwards, the backline (one big quality winger apart) not quite good enough and centres badly misreading or not strong enough in defence. Added to this a couple of very poor decisions from the ref at crucial times.

Physically we can match them, apart from Wilkin who offers zilch in that department & JJB who, though he would run 100mph into a brick wall, is simply not big enough. WHen Graham & Ellis did not return they were the subs. We lost it psychologically, MacNamara letting SHeens whinge on all week about the reffing which had an effect on the ref, Briscoe not having the self belief to go for the corner, & generally not having the killer instinct or belief we can finish them off.

Rangi Chase making sloppy school boy errors didn't help either. That cost us 12 points.

Despite a couple of brain farts I thought Chase looked a threat when he ran the ball. I also thought that we'd have been a lot closer had we not suffered three injuries to our best forwards.

Agree re Wilkin and JJB. Unfortunately McNamara didn't think we were too lightweight on the bench and we paid for that. Hopefully we'll have more size for the NZ game.

At least he played all of the bench, that's a novelty for Macnamara.

But we weren't too lightweight on the bench unless you could anticipate that all of Ellis, Graham and Peacock would be injured.

Chase often looked good against the best team in the world. Too many times our scrum half has gone walkabout against the Aussies, not Chase. Credit to McNamara for picking him.

We heard on the VT how crap Tomkins would be and how the Aussies would smash him etc., but he looked every inch the part, and came up with some quite outstanding plays. Credit to McNamara for playing bhim at FB, and the game plan that let him chime into the line to some devastating effect. (Also for the Reed/Hall combination which was superb).


Indeed, and credit to the team selection and tactics for that fact. Even Inglis was (again) not allowed to do much.


It did. Not sure how Mac "let" him do it - what do you suggest, he should have taken a contract out on him?



There may be something in that, the disallowed try should have acted as a spur, but then the shortage of pack on the field for the rest of the game was perhaps a bigger factor. And the genius short pass, which was a killer.

But if our try had been correctly awarded, I reckon we had the momentum, and would likely have gone on to win. Which brings me back to the main point of the thread, for once we looked as if we could play well enough going forward that they had to worry about us, for once we looked a genuine threat and we scored some good tries. So a lot of credit to McNamara for the whole thing. Maybe he needs to up his cheating game to match Sheens.

I don't think McNamara can take any credit for picking Tomkins, if ever a selection was a completer no brainer that was it.

I agree that he couldn't forsee losing 3 forwards to injury but he could have lessened the effect if he'd had two props on the bench. Plenty said as much beforehand but he chose to let Bailey and Carvell sit in the stand while playing lightweights like JJB and Wilkin.

Aside from that the side looked well prepared. However one creditable loss does not make him a good coach.

I don't know about that, it is a huge game against the best team in the world, and we looked well coached. Had we been abject and got humiliated, I'm sure plenty would say it made him a bad coach.

Also don't forget we ought to have had Sam Burgess in that pack as an added option too, if we didn't have such cruel luck.

You're right FA, Inglis didn't do much apart from catch the ball and stroll to the tryline unopposed with our right centre nowhere to be seen. Where have we seen that before?

A centre scoring a try? I don't think it's ever happened before.

I think perhaps the reference was more to the terribly weak soft c0ck defence of the McNamara-coached England team allowing Inglis to stroll through unopposed...

that Inglis try was a combination of a cracking run and an amazing pass from Thurston. Reed had a man to mark and he would have been ok if Hall had come inside to take Inglis. That said, it would have been 2 on 1 and I would put my house on Australia scoring from that, especially with Inglis providing.

Probably poor communication between and winger at worst but I don't think anything should be taken away from how easy Australia make plays like that look. A top try scored in a pressure situation.

Chase had a good game?

Must have been watching a different game to me. He hasn't done a great deal in either game for me, let's hope he finds his SL form soon.

Whether it was a planned move or off-the-cuff it was a quality sequence of play, and the previous pass from Cronk started it off, a player ran a good decoy and Thurston passed from right behind him (that was what the "obstruction" inquiry was about), the result was that the Aussies had a man over. The centre saw the danger and took the option of coming out of the line to try to intercept Thurston's pass, presumably on the basis that if the pass wasn't intercepted then a try was certain anyway, Thurston was good enough to see him move out and threw the ball over and behind him, where Inglis, making the extra man, caught it and ran in unopposed.

If Hall had come inside to take Inglis, that would have left the winger unopposed, so I can't blame Hall at all.

It was a top class move by the Aussies and credit where it is due.

To me, instead of giving credit for top class rugby league, to say that was nothing more than a case of McNamara's soft-c0ck defence just makes the poster look pretty stupid.

Mav should have pointed out that Sheens was merely trying to put pressure on a young ref but that he had the utmost faith that the ref wouldn't cave in to the Aussies bully boy approach. Then invented some technical offence the Aussies always commit for equilibrium.

I'm more with FA on this - you can't underestimate how well Australia execute close to the line. They have two great halfbacks and a team full of quality attacking players. It should surprise nobody that every now and then they score a try that looks easy but is in reality almost impossible to defend against (see also Origin over the last few years).

The key for England is to get experience from facing this kind of attack, and NOT to stand back and watch. I'm not suggesting everybody charge out at full speed, but you cannot allow Australia the space they have been getting. Moving up purposefully in a line and making Lockyer/Thurston make quick decisions is the only hope (along with preventing them get the field position in the first place).