Quote ="andyed-wiganrl"said this during the game, ellis should have gone straight to right centre after the debacle of the second try IMO.....it was obvious what they would do after that one and 3 more tries resulted.....Had Smith pulled his namesake off at this point putting burgess on and shifting it around as above we could have actually made a game of it second half.
That said I dont think aus would have eased off as they did if they didnt have such a buffer so in reality its pretty academic.'"
Personally I think Smith should be sacked for a number of reasons.
1. Englands performance in last years World Cup was embrassing. PNG nearly beat us and Australia destroyed us. So called disaray in the camp between Leeds and Saints players which any strong coach would have dealt with. No question.
2. Smith said we are building for the future. Then he goes and picks Lee Smith who is feckin off to Rugby Union at the end of this series.
3. As we have allready discussed Australia were running riot down the right hand flank and he failed to change things before it was too late. A amateur coach would have done better.
4. His squad selections are completley wrong imo. I have nothing against young Tom Briscoe and Im sure he will go on and have an excellent and successful career but come on he's hardly played for Hull this year and is playing for England vs Australia! Danny McGuire is not an International Stand Off he is an excellent club player but doesnt have the ability to step up to the plate at International Level. Gareth Carvell has had a great season at Warrington and seems to be surplus to requirements so it begs the question why was he picked in the first place when Smith has no intention of playing him. To have Kevin Sinfield at first reciever against the Aussies was plain stupid, Sinfield is an excellent Loose Forward/Captain for Leeds but cant hack it at International Level at all.
All in all Tony Smith isnt up to bringing England up to speed with the Australians and Kiwis as he is tactically inept at this level and also his squad selections and then his team selections are just laughable at times. If we manage to beat New Zealand which is a very big IF we will only get pasted by Australia again in the final. At the end of this series if we dont win it which im 100% convinced we wont what exactly will he have achieved??? In a couple of words balls all we beat a very poor New Zealand side in 2007 3-0 and apart from that we are as far away from Australia as we have ever been and New Zealand have improved 10 fold in that time. Smith has to be sacked as his poistion is untenable.
