Quite seriously, who gives a rats what he did at Bradford? It has absolutely zero relevance to his performance as England coach.

The results against Australia and NZ were 20-28 and 18-20. England could and perhaps should have won both. The end was the same, but I assume you have seen GB/England absolutely smashed by both those teams? Quite recently in fact. I've seen us get hammered in Brisbane - absolutely humiliated. With players like Peacock, Morley, Harris, Long et al in the side. This England team is light years better then the last one to come down under.

But any improvement is somehow all down to the players and nothing to do with the coach. Really? He had 'four years' to prepare? Again, really? With his full squad available on a regular basis? Even half his squad? Even half his squad being able to play regular competitive matches? Or was it more like a few catch-up sessions with players when he could get them?

As for Chase, until literally a few weeks before the WC, there seemed very little chance that Widdopp would have been fit. So as a good coach did, he would have planned with Chase and Sinfield. If you take Widdopp out of the equation, all the other names bandied about for 7 are frankly laughably poor.

You can argue - understandably - that he could have dropped Chase a week earlier (I would have agreed with that), but to suggest he should have started with Widdopp against Australia for instance is barmy.

Which brings us to the other load of tosh. Brough is responsible for not even being considered for England. McNamara didn't force him out. He was told he wasn't an automatic selection. How bizarre for a coach to do that with a player who hasn't achieved anything much at all in a ten-year career.

It was Brough who took his bat home and decided he was Scottish rather than try to force his way into the squad and then the team by delivering performances that would demand his selection. So if you want to bag anyone or Brough's absence, bag Brough, pseudo-scot-dummy-spitter extraordinaire.

I'm 100% certain McNamara has made mistakes. But blaming him for the results without looking at the quality of the performances is not fair, suggesting that a narrow-heartbreaking defeat is the same as an embarrasing hiding is ridiculous, and suggesting that Brough wasn't solely responsible for his non-selection is laughable.

Well said. I cant argue with any of that.

Yup, he picked has beings in the past and this years squad was the best by a long distance (even taking into account Crabtree & Brough's omission), we should have beaten the Australians in the first match and thus we wouldn't have had the NZ match which we should have won anyway.
HIS mistakes are the difference between winning and losing here, the quality of players we had this time around made ALL the difference in the scores compared to last time.
HTH

He hasn't had 4 years. He took over in late April 2010, his first game in June 2010.
I'd be happy for McNamara to continue, I think he's done a decent job.

Ideally I'd like to see the coach being appointed on a 4 year contract to end just after each World Cup. The RFL to review the coach and his staff's performance over the whole period and then to decide whether to offer the current coach another contract or look for alternatives.

One good performance where we narrowly get defeated by NZ and that exonerates McNamara

I wonder if we had used Ablett some of those tired forwards may not have been as tired.


How long did Burrows play?

someone said 12 minutes is that right?



Who made those decisions ?

He has got to go - for the reasons given by Roy Haggerty.

Funny he is coming over all coy and sheepish now saying he isn't really sure whether wants to continue. Is this a clever way out for him if he gets binned i.e. he jumps before he is pushed.

McNamara has been very lucky.

We have an excellent pack who nearly won the semi-final, and could have beaten the Ozzie pack no problem. Not been able to say that, since the days of Brian McTigue, Dick Huddart and Vinty Karalius.

Our front rowers of Sam Burgess and James Graham are immense.

Chris Hill and Benny Westwood also played their part as well as the other change around players like Roby.


In the recent past, it was our backs that shone.

If only our backs had 'stepped up to the plate' ?

Even as a Wigan fan, apart from Lockers, our players contingent have been average at best.

Very surprised that Sam Tomkins has done virtually nothing for a 'World class player'.

Left wondering if he isn't crocked ?

But then again, I am one who think's he is wasted at full back.

First point, of course we should look at his Bradford results. We were jumping for joy when he left. He has NO history

I cant be bothered arguing with Leeds fans about Brough anymore. Like I said, in June McGuire was selected in front of him despite Brough been the best player in league. Even Leeds wouldn't have had Mcguire in front of Brough. One of MANY situations handles poorly by Mcnmara.

Stick with Mcnamara we will push NZ and OZ
Close again as have too good a squad not too. But we won't anything, as Mcnamara doesn't have the experience of winning anything.

Can't fault this.

For all that I've enjoyed watching the likes of Tonga and France, there are three credible and competitive nations that can win a tournament like this one. England, NZ and Australia. Just three. And the harsh fact is that we lost against both our peer nations and have finished third.

On top of that, contrary to the popular myth that England have been better organised and prepared, it's been a shambolic campaign. Losing one squad player to poor discipline is bad, but losing two? Getting beaten by Italy, a team that should have had 70 put on them with ease, and then getting shirty in a press conference? Spending several years bigging up your controversial half back choice then abandoning it just before the biggest game since 2008? Voluntarily playing a tight, brutal game against the World Champions with only 16 players, and even then only using one of those for a short time?

The World Cup overall has been a brilliantly pulled off by the RFL. It has been a superb showcase for the sport. But England have not performed. We shouldn't mix up the elation from a fantastic tournament with the actual results of the national team. England have been poor in this competition.

The result against NZ was the worst possible one for England. It allows us to believe that the tournament has been okay for England, that we're there or thereabouts, that the different bounce of a ball and we'd be talking about a different situation. It allows the complacency to deepen.

The fact is, in a three way competition, we've just come third. Again. We haven't won an international tournament involving Australia for 41 years. I remember that we used to be competitive against NZ, but they have moved up a notch in the last ten years and we haven't.

I can recall bouts of GB/England soul searching every autumn for my entire life. Every time it was "we're closing the gap, we're nearly there". And we weren't.

Something fundamental has to change in British RL, something deeper than a reshuffle of the SL pack or the appointment of a different national coach. And yesterday's result, which don't forget was a failure, has only put back the day of reckoning yet again. It will allow the cowards who run the game to hide behind their fiction that everything is alright and we're nearly there. The same fiction that has served us so badly for the three decades since 1982.

As for whether McNamara should stay or go, I don't think it matters. The issues in British RL can't be fixed by one man pulling together a squad for a few weeks.

On the flip side, is there anyone here who would like to see him take over at their club? Really? I thought not.


My gut feel is that the man is a good administrator and I agree with the suggestion above that he should be running the England team alongside a coach with a lot of experience of winning short tournaments. Simply put, in the immediate future, we should be looking down the list of recent Queensland coaches to see who would want the job.

But you can put lipstick on a pig and it's still a pig. So yet another new coach won't make that much difference.

I'd offer the job to D. Powell he's a well rounded ex player and coach and seems to have a little bit more professionalism about him than McNamara. I genuinely think he could accept the role, not sure there'd be many more willing to do the job.

England have been a shambles in this campaign, and one performance against NZ shouldn't be used as the criteria on which we judge it.

Losing to Italy is not acceptable, under any circumstances.

Losing 5 players at various points to disciplinary issues is not acceptable.

Treating the media the way that he did was not acceptable.

Ferres, one of the best players, was not even named in the original squad, and then went on to play every single game. If he was seen as such a vital part of the team from the kick off of the very first game, why wasn't he named in the squad?

Persisting with Chase. Widdop not given a chance, despite Chase clearly not performing over the past 3 years.

If Widdop and Graham play against Australia, we would probably have played Fiji in the semi final, rather than NZ.

Voluntarily playing 16 men in a tough forward battle (with a forward sat on the bench for the entire game).

No clue what to do with the hooking role, with Roby, Burrow, McIllorum and Sinfield all having a go in the position at various points.

Getting to the semi final should be such a fundamental part of the job spec, it doesn't need to be said. I could coach England to the semi finals of this competition. It shouldn't be in any doubt that McNamara is removed from his position immediately.

The RL media in this country is ridiculously poor. I have no problem whatsoever with the way Steve McNamara treated them. They seem to want to be able to run around running their own campaigns and trying to undermine the coach, then also expect him to be on bended knee kissing their feet because they decided to give him the time of day.

They were ridiculous and their name isnt in much better stead with the club chairmen either,

TBH i think Wane and Anderson part time would be a great combo, big, scary, intellegent, passionate coaches.

Mac has done a great job in creating a team spirit and not overworking the players, although it seems some took advantage of this, i think his only problem was team selection.

I don't really follow your logic here. You're in favour of getting rid of MacNamara. That's fine; it's not a point of view I share but it's sensible if you see better options out there. But at least MacNamara got his side playing to within a few percentage points of their capabilities in the most important game of his tenure. Yet you see Anderson as a credible replacement when patently his side fell away at the most critical point of his first season in charge. I'm not having a dig at Anderson here; I'm sure he's smart enough to learn from it and become a better coach in the process. But there's simply no evidence that he's as far along that learning curve as MacNamara is.

McNamara should stay in the job unless we have a structure and/or personnel who would be better than him.

What McNamara has done and done well is build a squad, put in place the support structures around them, get them together regularly, and build towards this.

People proposing we just have a club coach who does the job part time need to see what a step backwards that is. We can’t just have a club coach who turns up at the end of the year to try and get results.

Part of me sees McNamara has done a very good job, part of me also thinks that letting him go would send out a message that failure is no longer tolerated. A galvanising effect that sends a message that we aren’t accepting being the plucky losers anymore.

For that we need to have something better in place. What that something is, is the question.

Im not sure that there are any coaches better than McNamara out there who would do the job full-time, which would mean a change of structure, possibly someone like Ellery Hanley taking control of the performance aspect full-time, with McDermott, Wane maybe even someone like Sculthorpe assisting with the first team squad.

Reports in League Express that he could become the backs coach at Bath RU

Regardless of how people think McNamara has performed, I think it's time for a change. McNamara could stay on in some capacity, perhaps as a liaison with the NRL-based players during the season, with the actual coaching job going back to part-time.

A few good things have been implemented, the regular squad meetings at Loughborough and the Knights for example. I think the squad needs to be freshened up now and get ready to build towards the future and ultimately the next WC. Players like Sinfield, Westwood, O'Loughlin, Burrow are getting on now and we've got to start looking at replacing them.

I'd put together an ETS and a Knights squad with this in mind. Something like:

England ETS:
FB: Sam Tomkins, Jonny Lomax
W: Ryan Hall, Josh Charnley, Tom Briscoe
C: Kallum Watkins, Leroy Cudjoe, Jack Reed
HB: Gareth Widdop, Matty Smith, Richie Myler
Utility: Zak Hardaker, Stefan Ratchford
P: James Graham, George Burgess, Chris Hill, Lee Mossop, Tom Burgess, Scott Taylor, LMS
H: James Roby, Mike McIlorum, Shaun Lunt
SR: Brett Ferres, Liam Farrell, Danny Kirmond, Carl Ablett
LF: Sam Burgess

Knights:
FB: Greg Eden, Jamie Shaul, Matty Russell
W: Jermaine McGilvary, Tom Lineham, Jodie Broughton
C: Ben Crooks, Iain Thornley, Josh Jones
HB: Gareth O'Brian, Sam Powell, Liam Sutcliffe
Utility: Dan Sarginson, Tom Makinson
P: Alex Walmsley, Dom Crosby, Liam Watts, Brad Singleton
H: Danny Houghton, Darryl Clark, Josh Hodgson
SR: Ben Currie, Chris Clarkson, Jack Hughes
LF: John Bateman, Stevie Ward

Sure I've missed loads out and there will be lads who are 18-21 now who will be pushing for places in a few years time. But there is plenty of talent and potential without having to rely on the players who won't be around in 4 years time. The first team need more games against NZ and Australia and the Knights need regular fixtures against the other European sides, or Pacific Island teams.

Other than wishful thinking I've never heard any suggestion that Hanley is likely to ever return to the game in any serious capacity.
Even if he did, I'm not sure what he could offer. He's been out of it for at least 12 years and his coaching reputation always seemed to be more based on his previous playing ability than anything else.

If and when there is a change, we need Shaun Edwards as coach with a strong manager in addition for tournaments eg Hetherington

Smokey,

There was a moment on Saturday when Tanya Arnold asked McNamara if he thought it had been a good world cup despite the issues at the start. A good and honest man, such as Stephen Kearney, would have shrugged his shoulders, looked a little bit conciliatory and would have said, "yeah, we had issues but we worked through them, learned from them and it made us stronger."

That would have been a class answer and respect would have gone to the coach. Instead McNamara quickly turns indignant and says, " we had no problems, this is a strong squad" or words to that effect. Talk about rewriting history. I thought at that moment the idiot has learnt nothing.

That wasn't the fault of the RL press that was McNamara not having the basic understanding that sometimes it is okay to show weakness or errors or to admit to mistakes. If he can't learn that basic approach do you think he will get any media support?

That’s just nonsense.

You have simply invented something someone else would have said, to criticise a McNamara quote you don’t really remember.

I don’t think any England manager needs media support.

The RL media are uniformly terrible, each running their personal little campaigns, and bitching and whining when stories aren’t handed to them on a plate. The national media don’t give us much but what they do isn’t anywhere near the depth to be troubling.

I'd agree but this isn't a proposal being put forward solely by posters on this board. Several media sources over the weekend have stated quite unequivocally that this decision has already been made by the powers that be.

Nope, I recall something like that in the on pitch interview straight after the game, and thought that McNamara should improve his media skills too.