Think he's had one competition and come oh so close to exceeding everyone's expectations it would be mad to get shut of him now.

The players back him, he's found the courage to drop ego players taken media flak that IMO no England coach has had to face in the past. The learning curve he's been through would all be wasted.

I'd give until at least after the next World Cup.

Quote ="FlexWheeler"All the mcnamara nay sayers and people criticising his management with f*ck all knowledge of what happened can suck it www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/rugbyl ... efeat.html [i Steve McNamara spoke to us all really well but it was only what I expected because he has done a wonderful job. He has had to deal with issues over the last few weeks that are unacceptable at elite level sport and he has taken a lot of flak on his shoulders to protect certain people. He has dealt with things strongly and that has laid a great platform for years to come, because if he hadn’t been as strong it would have sent out the wrong message, not only to our squad, but the England Knights and the Under-18s. We are striving to be No 1 in the world and if we are going to bridge that gap we have to make sure that the off-field stuff is done just as well as the on-field stuff. I am sure Steve has got a number of career options now but I hope he stays on as England coach. A lot of people have opinions from outside and question certain things and I get all that, especially some of the selection stuff, but when you are inside and know what is happening you realise what a great job he has done. Everybody inside has 100 per cent respect for him. [/i'" Again results speak for themselves. Time to move on, why do we continue to accept mediocrity. 2008, Australia were not just beating, but destroying everything in sight. They got caught cold by NZ. One poor performance in god knows how many years. Australia change coaches because they have such high standards! I just cannot see how some people think 1 win in 7 against OZ & NZ makes someone a good coach. He has brought some very excellent ideas in that will benefit England long term. But he has made some very poor mistakes. Mcnamra had put everything into this tournament and fallen short. What else can he bring over the next 4 years that he hasn't the last 3? Oh and finally, what does Paul Anderson think of Danny Brough... Take that Brough haters

Quote ="FlexWheeler"All the mcnamara nay sayers and people criticising his management with f*ck all knowledge of what happened can suck it www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/rugbyl ... efeat.html [i Steve McNamara spoke to us all really well but it was only what I expected because he has done a wonderful job. He has had to deal with issues over the last few weeks that are unacceptable at elite level sport and he has taken a lot of flak on his shoulders to protect certain people. He has dealt with things strongly and that has laid a great platform for years to come, because if he hadn’t been as strong it would have sent out the wrong message, not only to our squad, but the England Knights and the Under-18s. We are striving to be No 1 in the world and if we are going to bridge that gap we have to make sure that the off-field stuff is done just as well as the on-field stuff. I am sure Steve has got a number of career options now but I hope he stays on as England coach. A lot of people have opinions from outside and question certain things and I get all that, especially some of the selection stuff, but when you are inside and know what is happening you realise what a great job he has done. Everybody inside has 100 per cent respect for him. [/i'" Again results speak for themselves. Time to move on, why do we continue to accept mediocrity. 2008, Australia were not just beating, but destroying everything in sight. They got caught cold by NZ. One poor performance in god knows how many years. Australia change coaches because they have such high standards! I just cannot see how some people think 1 win in 7 against OZ & NZ makes someone a good coach. He has brought some very excellent ideas in that will benefit England long term. But he has made some very poor mistakes. Mcnamra had put everything into this tournament and fallen short. What else can he bring over the next 4 years that he hasn't the last 3? Oh and finally, what does Paul Anderson think of Danny Brough... Take that Brough haters

Mediocrity? You are clearly simply a sulking Bulls fan with personal issues re McNamara.

If you don't believe you just witnessed a very physical game between two very high-quality, evenly matched sides, you could always ask SBW - ''I don't think I have felt like that before on a footy field,'' Williams said. ''It was such an intense game. It felt like 12 rounds [in the boxing ring. As you can see from the bruises on my face and on my body, I am pretty banged up but I will be ready to go next week."

Or ask JWH, who was in tears after the game.

Suggesting that loss was in any way comparable to previous ones we've suffered, against what is rated by many as one of the best NZ sides of all time is frankly ridiculous.

Again, McNamara's record at the Bulls is completely irrelevant to how he has done the job for England. If you don't understand that, then as I say, you're just another sulking Bulls fan. You obviously think your former player Sam Burgess is lying or too scared to say anything but good things about McNamara too.

You're getting a bit OTT here, mate. People are entitled to disagree on this issue without turning to that sort of abuse. There's been decent points made on both sides, mostly.

I was not a Mcnamara fan, I thought it was a mistake him getting the job.

I thought he took the right line discipline wise with the drunken players. (They really let the side down with that amateurishness)

I think he should have dropped Chase after the first 2 games, but I don't know whether Widdop was fit and in the 3rd game chase put together a decent 20 mins once we where on top so I can see why he would pick him for France hoping that his form had turned a corner. But faced with that performance he had to drop him as we would not have done better with him in the side.

Would I keep him??? On balance I would say no.
It's a close call, but he has been 4 years out of the regular coaching game, he has had 4 years to put this squad and this regime together. If there is a decent choice out there then the RFL should take it. If there is not a decent choice or only the offer of part-time then we should stick with Steve.

But the game moves on and so must we. I am not a hater and I think I was wrong with my initial thoughts on him 4 years ago. His time has been a success and he has made massive progress with the team, but if there is someone of quality available we should give them a shot too.

I rather like giving a 4 year turn around. Not too into the 1 or 2 year deals and I feel that is what we would offer steve now. A 1 year deal to see if he can pulling it off next year in the 4 nations.

Or maybe that's what we need 1 more year. Which would put the next England coach on 3 years to go one step further at the next world cup, then a year after a world cup to find a replacement.

But I would not give another 4 years, so not another WC.

Has he explained his bench decisions yet? I am stunned we would play a 15 man game against a brutal NZ team.

ONE performance!! 70k at Wembley in front a
Home World Cup semi final against the word champions,
If we didn't come out firing then there's something wrong.

If I'm a sulking bulls fan why would I praise him for some of the other things he's done. My post is well balanced with pros and cons of why IMO he should go. You revert to petty insults which says everything.

If Mcnamara was a good enough coach we would have won yesterday. Only using 16 players in a game like that, one of them for 10 mins, difference between winning and losing.

We will never beat Australia/New Zealand with attitudes like yours. Those two would be looking at the hundreds of things we could have done better in that game to win.

I'll give you an example of attitudes. Charnley (who i thinks a great player) & Slater. Slater is a much better player than Chanley, yet in the opening game Charnley casually jogs back for a kick. Puts a foot out, OZ score we lose. Slater sprints for his like his life depends on it. The Aussie coaches will have drilled those sorts of plays into him, those little percent plays that make all the difference at this level. They don't just praise his stunning attack, they look at making him even better. Charnley again scored 30+ tries. Excellent wing play. But if I'd have said he needs to work on the speed he runs back for the ball I'd have been accused of knit picking, jealous bulls fan etc All about attitudes, Australia aren't super human, they're the best as they work on ALL the little things that we barely notice.

"His time has been a success" is pushing it a bit. The squad is manged much more professionally than in the past (something you would expect to happen moving the role to a FT position) but ATEOTD we are expected to beat any team apart from NZ and Australia, so in my eyes a measure of success is how the England team has performed under McNamara against those 2 nations, and it doesn't read well, something like 1 win in 7 games (off the top of my head)? Add to that 2 defeats by the Exiles also. Time to freshen things up IMO, 3 and half years with limited success is more than enough time to decide that someone else should take over. I don't think one outstanding performance in defeat to NZ is enough to justify keeping him on.

I think we should extend his contract on a rolling 12-month basis. This is what happens with Australia.

He deserves a crack at Australia and NZ in the 4N next year. This team will be pretty much the same and the experimentation is now pretty much over. If England show continued momentum then he is the right man for the WC in 2017. If not, we still have 3 years to bed a new option in.

The last 3 years was for experimentation. He has has had 3 years to work out his best team, and still seems fairly clueless about what to do with his main pivots at halfback and hooker.

Roby, Burrow, McIllorum and Sinfield have all had a go at hooker in different combinations and rotations over the 5 games. Had we actually won on Saturday I don't believe that McNamara knows who he would play there in the final. He probably wouldn't play Burrow, so back to McIllorum starting and Roby on the bench again.

The Chase/Widdop debate has been done to death, but Saturday finally proved that McNamara's use of Chase for the past 3 years has been a waste of time and effort, and a wasted opportunity for Widdop to get properly embedded in the team.

To be fair Widdop was injured last year at international time and the year before Chase had just won MOS

You are looking at it too black and white, Widdop was fantastic on Saturday that doesn't automatically mean he should have been first choice in 2011 and 2012 he was injured.

I would certainly keep banana cake for the next year.
Make a decision on next years results and performances.

Fwiw is like both McNamara and Sinfield to give it one more crack at the 4N

The point is that McNamara didn't know, until it was too late, that Widdop was a better choice than Chase. He shouldn't be using the World Cup semi final to experiment.

Even he didn't know before the start of the competition, we had games against Ireland, Fiji and France to experiment in.

Same with going with Roby and Burrow in the semi final; which was the only combination of the potential hookers that he hadn't used in the previous 5 games.

Tbf that attitude is taught from being 15, not when they reach international level!

The point is he did know, he wanted Chase but it didn't work out so he changed it when it mattered, basically he's damned if he does damned if he doesn't with some people on here.

Widdop had only just come back from a very nasty injury, how do you know how he was fairing after the Uastralia game?

McNamara made a very good and brave decision in changing his halfback before the biggest game of the tournament and for 79 minutes and 40 seconds it worked

Really? He's a very poor loser and would have been talking about the rugby gods going after SBW or something last weekend.

Get rid, if the players respected him then there wouldn't have been the early discipline problems, plus the problems every time a player isn't selected they show their and want to leave. They don't respect him, they think his opinion beneath them and for that reason he can't command any authority.

His selection is baffling, he doesn't rate the current MoS, the same man shortlisted with SBW and GI, the same man who made Scotland a level higher than anyone expected.

Then there's the whole Ferres, fringe player that turns out to be one of our better players.

Losing against Italy, Exiles.

Guy isn't good enough, what would Wayne Bennett have done with the pool of players he had at his disposal?

You criticise him for this, yet the player he picked ahead of him had an outstanding tournament and was close to, if not, MoM in almost all England games.

Surely he should be praised for that decision considering the result of it and the pressure he was under to go the other way?

Respect is a two way thing, the players who went out boozing despite team orders are the ones who deserve no respect, McNamara dealt with those players correctly.

As for bringing up Brough again... No where has McNamara said he doesn't rate Brough in fact it was him that ask Brough to make hself available to England, what McNamara said was he only wanted players that were commited 100% to playing for England, Brough clearly did not fit that criteria.

The players were correctly disciplined but why don't they respect their coach, that answer is the most important to me.

You're asking for an answer to a question based on nothing. How do you know the players don't respect him, I've certainly not heard any of them say as such, just because you imagine that's the case doesn't make it true.

Maybe just maybe the ones that misbehaved are just big daft lads who thought they could get away with it

Chase leaves camp after not getting selected, he was dropped for something, I'm not having it that it was Chases decision to leave on the eve of a game v NZ.

We were told McIllorum was injured yet he came out on twitter saying that he didn't get picked and was fit.

Graham and Hardacker dropped and Hock sent home, Hardacker commits further indiscretion and sent home.
The fact one of those is Graham who isn't a big daft lad in fact before that was probably captain material must have alarm bells ringing somewhere?

Steve was terrible at Bulls, he's not the most articulate bloke, he was unnecessarily aggressive towards the press.

I just think this job is beyond him, he'll keep it though as it's a part time job dressed up and only out of work coaches will consider it.

Chase got dropped and allowed to go home to see his heavily pregnant wife, are you now saying chase shouldn't have been dropped?

As for tge rest you are just stating things that happened without knowing why they happened, I'll ask you what evidence have you got that the players don't respect Steve McNamara ?

Whether they respect him or not they should've followed the no booze rule. No excuses. The minute they did that they lost any credibility.

National coach is a thankless task but on the whole I think he's done an ok job. Certainly he's better than his predecessor and it was our best world cup since 1995. There's not any other candidates newly available AFIAK so let him continue.