Brian McDermott???

Have to agree there. I’m not Bennett’s biggest fan, as most in here know, but we can hardly blame him for Hardaker being a prize pr1ck. Him and SOL in that team and I think we win.

I’ve got a lot of time for McDermott, more than many Leeds fans I think, but just think the job would be perfect for Wane. Managing that pack, and motivating players above their level, I just think he could be more effective than McDermott in an international environment.

Also whilst the defence has improved you can't ignore the struggles in attack and to score points. If an English coach had failed to score s single point in a WC Final he'd be getting A LOT of stick right now'"

If only Powell and Wane could work together! Those 2 working together I think could be the ultimate England coaching team. There’s nothing that, between them, they haven’t got to get the best out of the squad.

It's a no for me. Get rid of Betts first though.

gotta stick with top coaches only really powell in the UK inspires me, the rest are top aussies, big Mal maybe?

almost pulled it off!

be happy if he stays but dont think he will

we need to carry on improving again now

should win the tests against nz next year

No we don't, the choice of personnel and player mentality (or lack thereof) ultimately cost us, that's down to him.
The Bateman decision, not playing Taylor, putting on Heighington until too late and Taylor simply better, no Tomkins and Burgess not a 13 in a month of Sundays and yet no direct replacement for SoL which we needed given how weak our 6 and 7 are/were throughout the comp including in the final. Gale kicked better in the first half but was only just better than Brown otherwise.

Bennett has to go.

This is ideal for me. They will both know SL players and can cover pretty much all bases. Powell to coach them to play well going forward and game management. Wane to sort out the defense and get them housing the aussies and spoil their game.

Bennett will leave off his own back.
I doubt you'll have to start another misguided, unsuccessful petition.

I don't think Bennett will stay, he's been pretty good getting England in to the position they are but the last thing I wanna see is England playing the Aussie game.
We have to break this mechanical, formulaic grind and pressure game they have because to be quite honest its a bit of a yawn, I don't think that's gonna happen with Bennett in charge, we're just gonna end up playing the Aussies at their own game.
We're not gonna beat them playing Aussie style once a flood, when they play it week in week out, its what they are used to.
But that in itself presents opportunities in that there isn't much of a back up plan if it gets broken.

Trouble is England weren't capable of executing the "mechanical formulaic grind".

Too many incomplete sets, lack of composure in their 20m and poor attacking kicks on the last.

Australia didn't do anything special, but their consistency of approach and composure to grind out eventual openings was more effective than our panicking and trying to force a score when the opportunities simply weren't really there.

While I agree with your desire not to play the Ausie way, we have to realise that that the way the game is refereed & the rules have been brought in by them for the way they play. Not a lot we can do about that but at least some of our best players play in the NRL & know the game played by them. I would love to see a bit of English off the cuff play but it is very risky the way the game is refereed now.

I think Bennet has proved what he has been saying all year that the England players don,t have the skills and are not smart enough especially in the half backs to win a World Cup.
If Powell starts winning in the big finals in the next few years then he might be worth considering, we are probabably going to lose around 8 really good international players shortly and up to now we can,t see any young rising stars in Superleague that will improve the team we have now.

Bateman was oustanding today. We need a stand off badly and Widdop us not the solution. He's played very well at full back but he's awful at stand off.

I thought Chris Hill and James Graham were our outstanding players today, Bateman was very good at keeping hold of the ball.

And nullifying Halls attacking potential.

Im not sure whether hes not fully fit or whether hes constrained by Wayne but to me Currie has not been as creative as we know he can be. Maybe he's more suited to SL than this percentage rugby.

Absolutely right, it is risky, but the alternative is the same old same old.
We didn't see much unstructured stuff from England, except maybe right at the death, but its the only way to turn over the statistic grind, chucking in a spanner that a calculator cannot make provision for.
Its either that, or play their game, win lose or draw it'll be dull, made watchable only by the virtue of closeness of the final score.
I don't really want to watch that kind of game, its a stat race with little scope for the unexpected.
Everybody goes on about the NRL being superior to SL, but from a spectators perspective it just isn't, its a dull war of stats with nothing between them at the end, or a get in front and shut up shop job, there is no feeling that anything could happen, no anticipation of the unexpected.
Just go back to the Tonga game, could that have happened had they been playing Oz, no, and it would have been less of a game without it, we got none of that till it was too late, that's what I (as a spectator) want to see, not 80 mins of mm measuring and completed set counts.

One thing I did notice right from the start of the WC was that we didn't have an equalizer, no x factor somebody that could make something out of nothing, McGillvaray looked like the only ticket through their first line on kick returns and first man up broken play, everybody else was rock solid steady dependable, no wildcards, that is the direction we are moving with Bennett.

I don’t think he’s 100%. Someone said the reason they haven’t put him at centre is because they’re worried his knee won’t be able to handle the more lateral movements.

All this talk about people want to see an expansive game, Rugby League isn't like football where you've got hundreds of tactics and game plans. You can either offload or you can pass before contact; you can only offload if you've won the contact and you only pass the ball into space if you've created space in the first place - inevitably, the only way that happens is if you win the play-the-ball. Defences are so well organised now and against Australia and NZ, you aren't going to be able to just throw the ball about. Add to that, he only has a small amount of time with the players and it takes months to change the habits players have at club level.

He can only work with the players he has. England's weaknesses (and it's been the same for I don't know how long), is the half backs. There wasn't a shortage of field position but the difference was Australia's ability to build and maintain pressure consistently. Luke Gale kicking on play two for a back rower is an off-the-cuff piece of play but it completely let them off the hook and relieved all the pressure - are people happy with that or does Bennett have a point about England's weakness?

Put a quality half and a quality centre in there today and England win for me. England are a much better team than they were 12 months ago IMO and Bennett has only had a mid season test against Samoa in between then and the World Cup and straight away he's improved the England defence (the main thing for me), if we can keep him for the next few years, hopefully he'll be able to build on that and improve our attack. He knows what it takes to win big games. But, he needs time with the players and if he stays for the next 4 years, I think we'll be in a good position.

A bigger question IMO is his assistant coaches.

To me, some of Bennett’s selection decisions are bizarre.
Bateman in the centre was an abject failure. Did he pass to his winger once? He’s solid enough in defence, but we need more firepower in that position. I don’t think he ever look like an attacking threat.
Kevin Brown. How on earth he was selected over Sneyd I just can’t fathom. His club form this season was awful.
However, the most baffling selection was Tom Burgess. Bennett’s methods are based on minimising errors, yet he selected the player most likely to make errors.

Wayne Bennett is now 67. He will be 71 at the time of the next World Cup. I cannot imagine that he will still be coaching then.

Hahahahahahaha

Regards

King James