This. It's not Bennett dropping ball, making terrible kicks and the wrong decisions. We need players who can do the job and if the ones in the squad can't then they need replacing.

It also means players like Williams and Percival really need to up their games if they want to feature down the line.

As an aside, I'd love to know what Betts and Anderson bring to the team.

Wasn't Bennett meant to eradicate those things? Other coaches have been criticised for their failure to beat says and NZ and at the end of the day Bennett is 0-4 against them. All he's done in my eyes is found a different way to lose to Australia, we may not ship as many points against them but matters little if the attack is as poor as it's been.

I do on that final point. Personally, I'd have liked to see what a Bennet/ Powell combo could have done at this WC. Bennet obviously knows his defensive structures and maybe Powell would have got more points out of the backs. Too late now though.

Bennett's successful coaching has come off the back of a good defence for 80 mins and a good pivotal spine at 1, 6, 7 and 9. I,ve been very critical all year with our England Coach, but I can see where he is coming from over the last 2 games, a high completion rate via minimum amount of errors puts you in a winnable position against the best teams.
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He's been critical of the Superleagues lack of skills and intensity for quite a while now, more has to be done on English Soil to raise the standard of the game, for 30+ games we play pretty much arm wrestle style with dumb plays, I don't think Bennett can "flick a switch" to get all the players playing one particular NRL style type of rugby, its got to be done in our own back yard before we can fine tune for future international competition.

England made a lot of errors today but still competed. That's real progrsss. The fact we ain't got players to fill a couple of key positions is all that cost us. Bennett can't do anything about that.

Hope he goes. How can you go to a world cup with only 2 centres and 2 wingers then play an undersized 2nd row in the centres?Heighington and T Burgess had no place in that team along with Brown .The team played great today and almost did enough but had zero threat on the left. This perception that the nrl is so far ahead is bollox it's just last year's performances in superleague counted for nothing.Bennett is a rude blinkered dinosaur and can go tiddle himself as far as I'm concerned

The Burgess lads should go over there to sort out their ball retention...

Slightly stunned by any one that wouldn't want bennet to stay on

That's about as close as we have being to beating them in as long as I can remember, we were a couple of % away from beating them today

A couple of errors at crucial times (tom burgess)
Bateman not being able to pass a ball (his defence and effort were outstanding though) so it's cruel to point a finger at him
Losing S O'L, he could have being the difference today

Regardless of the Bateman, lomax and brown selection issue, he worked with what he had and nearly got us there

Perhaps with more time he will
I hope he stays on

For what its worth i hope Wayne Bennett stays on as coach.

Good post.

Its become a bit of a cliche in the modern game, but you really do have to "earn the right" to play the expansive stuff, and you do that by running hard, completing your sets and earning field position. You can try to give the ball air from off the back foot if you want, but it generally doesnt end well. 99% of what England did yesterday was perfect for a test match. But having done the groundwork they panicked when they got a chance to attack.

I really don't think it's coincidence that we have more NRL based players in the England setup than ever and us being able to compete like we did today

Finding world class players in a few key positions is more important than who the coach it.
If you're an English centre, full back or half back, you'd like to think they'd be training the house down this pre season because those positions are still wide open.
George Williams in particular has a lot of work to do, he's got the raw talent, but is too one dimensional at the moment, I hope he gets more responsibility at Wigan next season so he can become a more rounded player, because chances are he won't just be able to pass the ball 5 yards to Liam Farrell, or grubber kick for Joe Burgess to chase whilst playing for England.

Wouldn't bother me if he stayed on but I would prefer Powell to be in the job.

Very true, with the large increases in the NRL salary cap year after year and England’s good showing in the final, I expect a few more of the England squad to be playing in the NRL in the next year or two.

Jermaine McGillvary's value will have gone off the scale after his efforts in the WC.
Along with Widdop, England's 2 stand out performers.
Gale also improved as the tournament went on and perhaps if he had been given the no 7 shirt and chance to find his feet at international level, things may have been a little different.
Left centre was our biggest issue though and with our opposition knowing that our left edge was so impotent, it made their defending somewhat easier.

whats in it for bennett now going forward?

is he really interested in winning the series next year against new zealand??

and by the time the word cup comes round its another 4 years so i think he is odds on to go.

betts maybe step up for now? not sure who else would take the job from england anyway

Think left centre could be less of a problem next year, with Liam Sutcliffe finally finding his best position at LC and Oliver gildart aswell coming through. Also as most people have been saying Shelton had his best season ever a real wingers centre and not even in squad.

Bennett is a great coach one of the greatest, but some of his selections as already stated ultimately cost us the tournament, we have the players but he preferred not to use them in preference mainly to NRL players, T burgess heighington no where near good enough, cuthbertson wastly superior to both of those but bennet does not like his style of play (natural footballers). Yesterday we just lacked a player our two who could just produce a moment of magic to prize open the defence. A proper left centre would have been a start, the underuse of Stefan Ratchford over the poor Lomax.
The ingredients were there we just to use them wrong or not use them.

Hull Daily Mail had a thought provoking article the other week, explaining that the new NRL deal gives a minimum salary of about £69k and an average wage of £200k.

They used the example of someone like Scott Taylor being on approx £80-100k and therefore being able to double his wages by being just a squad player in the NRL. Good for England's development but worrying for SL as i'm not seeing masses of talented youngsters to replace our already dwindling nunber of big name stars.

I see that as a good thing
If sl player goes over there for a higher wage other than the money the benefit is to be trained and coached at the highest level, they either make it in the NRL and bolster the England team like Sam burgess and widdop or they don't make it and come back to SL and grind out a decent living, everyone wins

If they are good enough and wasn't it enough they will make it over there

The Ryan Hall fingertip no try in 2014 in Australia?

It’s completely realistic that any England player could double their salary by going to the NRL. I don’t know why any of them would stay in Super League, the salary cap has risen so quickly, It’s gone from;
2006 $3.6 million
2010 $4.3 million
2014 $6.3 million
2018 $9.4 million

Not as straightforward as just about money though. It's a huge thing to move your family to the other side of the world. In McGillvery's case his young lad is at Man City's academy so wouldn't want to move him from there. Wife's and girlfriends aren't all stay at home spending the credit cards like footballers WAGS and have jobs and careers too.

indeed , money not everything, sometimes family is more important and alot that go over dont settle... joe wardle one recent case

Liam Watts turned down Newcastle Knights this year, which I believe to be not wanting to be apart from his kids

If the RFL raised the salary cap by another £1m, how many team's would struggle to raise revenue to accommodate the expenditure