I don't give a tuppenny e about his England coaching career Coco. I couldn't care less if he'd played 10 lost 10.

I will always be grateful to him for bringing us what had eluded us for so long.

Any Leeds 'supporter' who cannot appreciate what Smith did for Leeds needs their head reading and would probably enjoy the 80s all over again.

Emma, I don't want to get in the middle of a domestic, but what more could Smith have done as England coach? In the World Cup he lost to the the two finalists, one of which is being touted as the greatest ever Australian team and on that won the tournament. This year he lost to the same "greatest ever" Australian team and beat the current world champions!

Put the greatest coach ever in charge of this lot and he'll fail too.

I have no probs with the matches against Australia. We were beaten by a better, (and world class team). However I do have a problem with the performances against France, and the World cup last year.

Look at the experience and quality of players 1-7 and what happened was inevitable, in fact they performed above expectation at times.

However on squad selection, an experienced quality centre ie Senior (granted we don't know the full story of his offer) as well as a balanced half back pairing ie Eastmond/Tomkins with an experienced Burrow/Mcguire and sticking with it would have made some difference. I'm all for blooding youth but the back line had no chance, even if the pivots got quality ball wide Bridge and Shenton wouldn't put their wing away

losing is not the issue ricky, it's the way we lost. we were a disorganised shambles. it was embarressing

He's a Leeds legend no doubt about it but do you think that should be considered when offering opinions about his England reign??
I personally think they are 2 completely different entities and even when you consider the calibre of the players available at international level and the lack of quality backs performances have been mainly dissapointing imo.

so a 66-12 win wasn't good enough for you earlier this year? How disrespectful are you being to France? I trust you were equally disgusted with Leeds' performance against Catalans in the play-offs.

...doesn't take long for the knives to come out does it.



Sad thing is, this isn't reserved for Smith. Lose a few games over Easter and it will be our own, current players that are on the receiving end.

Worst fans in the league..... except for St Helens.

I wouldn't say the knives are out,are you not dissapointed with how TS has done at international level??
Just because fans are dissapointed at how England have done it's hardly getting the knives out imo.

No. I expected him to do naff all and I havent been disappointed.



Of course it is. Some people just love to stick the boot in on Smith. It's a shame that one of the most decorated coaches in Leeds RLFC history is so reviled by areas of the supporter base.

Gareths right about our supporters.

We could have Jack Gibson coaching us and the result would have been the same - their is simply no substitute for class.

The gulf between SL and the NRL is so wide as to be laughable if it weren't so sad. The Aussies technical ability physicality/speed and game awareness is light years ahead of our players.

Until we are able to get more of our players immersed into that culture the results will continue to be as they have in recent years.

As for Smith - I thought he did a pretty good job given the players at his disposal - this will be seen a high point after next years quad nations

Is Sheens full time? Does he get access to players several times a year? Do these lads play together for team and state? Have they played together for years and know each others games?

Do we have a part time coach. Do the players get together properly more than once a year, do many of them know each other? Do many of them know each others game?

As CM says, what is Smith to do? Clark walked out on GB because they had no internal structure and wouldn't implement one.

He selects players on form for the WC and there are cliques and the team fails to adhese. He breaks the cliques up by selecting for the future and playing young aspiring talent, spreading the places around as many teams as poss, and he's the "Tinkerman", the fact that the team put in the best hour of rugby I have seen them play in a long long time notwithstanding.

Damned if he does, damned if he doesn't.

As CM , as for France, it was lovely to see that they have adopted the same line as those great 80's French teams, grind it out. Once they start benefiting from youth develoipment France are going to be back as test nation.

For the record, I predict the beginning of the end for the new England coach will begin with a rather patchy performance against a volcanic PNG side next year.

It's the impossible job isn't it. What do they call it in football, the "poisioned challice". You can't win as an international coach unless you win every game, and in style with a great performance.

I said before, it's really difficult to judge how Smith performed on-field as a coach because we actually performed as expected - as we have done for the last X number of years. We can beat France, PNG and Wales, but not always with a stunning performance. We can be competitive against NZ, and we lose to Australia. That's pretty much where we are talent wise as a competition in SL.

His selection was never going to please everyone 100%, because we've all got opinions, and no international coach has ever pleased everyone in selection - ever.

I would say though that it would have been interesting to see how Smith would have looked as a coach if he'd had Waite/Noble's squad. A yonger NRL Morely, a dynamic Peacock, Sculthorpe, Cunningham (if he was ever fit at the end of the season), Fielden at his best, Barrie Mac, Farrell, in the forwards. Maybe he could have gotten the best out of Long and the young McGuire more often, maybe he would have used Sinfield.

Exactly my thoughts. We simply do not have the quality.

Its not simply do not have the quality. Its far from simple.

We competed for an hour there on Saturday, and if anything looked the better quality team. Did Shenton going off have an effect on the final scoreline? probably not the result but probably the scoreline.

Our forwards more than matched the Aussies. So where do we improve from here.

IMO taking the control away from Sinfield and laying it with two inexperienced halfbacks, like we did in that second half, was a key contibutor to how the game changed. Was that Smiths fault? it was certainly a tactical error, but did the players go against the plan.

We do have improvements in us. Getting Yeaman back to form would be a big step, he is far superior to Bridge. I am also looking forward to what the new Wigan coach does at Wigan. Karl Pryce has the attributes of an Aussie, but is wasted. Can the new Wigan coach get the best out of him? if he does, we have a massive improvement straight away, otherwise its another chump.

Looking over the next few years, it is only centre and fullback where we have a shortage of quality. Then it is entirely down to the coach and his tactics.

First choice England v First choice Australia.

Do they match in terms of quality?

Forwards and wings, Yes. Centres, Fullback, and Scrum half, No. Stand off, possibly once Lockyers gone.

Like I said, we need players for the Fullback and Centres mainly. Yeaman on form is better by miles than Chris Bridge.

Therefore without a First choice England we still were better than that First choice Australia for 60 minutes. What happend after is history. You put it down to quality, I put it down to tactics and loss of a very good defender. Somewhere in the middle is probably where it is. But I dont think it is as you put "simply down to quality".

I still believe fitness has a great deal to do with it,otherwise why do we compete for 60 minutes on numerous occasions and then cave in the last 20 minutes.

I train my under 16's to attack, because attacking takes a lot less out of you. Defending absolutely kills you.

So Australia attack, even in defence they attack. And because they attack and we defend, eventually the legs go and the heads go down and then they can do what the hell they want.

In the stages where England attacked for periods the Aussies were blowing out their rings. But as has been mentioned England couldn't keep it up. A lack of creativity and flair, most definately. Fitness, I just think we did too much defending.

I think mental strength has a lot to do with it too, those missed tackles are caused by mental fatigue a lot of the time. And then once the socre starts to slip the mind goes and it's over.

It's all speculation and we can't know for sure, but I'm not so sure it was tactical, or fitness. My theory is that for the first 60 minutes we kept the game tight, it was largely a forward battle, as Test matches often are, and we handled that well. In the last 20 minutes the game started to stretch a bit, as Test matches often do. That put the ball in the hands of the backs, with room to operate. at that point the difference in class between the resperctive back lines and halves came to the fore. The rest, as you say, is history.

Obviously only a theory, like anyone else's, but it's my take on it, for what it's worth.

I'm not saying your theory is wrong. But most peoples opinion on Saturday was that when we brough Roby on things changed for us. Sinfield went away from controlling the game, and the performance diminished. That is a tactic that went spectacularly wrong.

Also I dont thin it was just a coincidence that everything went wrong defensively once Shenton went off, with most breaks coming down that position there after.

Whilst I accept that Australia has a far bigger and better pool of resources to choose from. I still think we were only a couple of positions light on Saturday along with the IMO poor tactical change with the controller/s on the pitch.

I agree. We aren't as far as off as some people would like us to think. Like you say at the moment the centres are our big problem. We have little threat out wide other than from a kick. Australia's great strength lies in its depth of players. If Inglis, Hodges etc dont perform theres another 2 or 3 ready to take their place without much drop in quality. We on the other hand are debating whether to play a 33 year old who's retired from internationals.
I do worry for England/GB though when Peacock and Morley retire.

when you are inferior to a team, in any sport, you can go a long way by being highly organised,highly disciplined and hard to beat.
look at greece in the european championships.

i didn't expect england to win the world cup, but i expected to compete. i didn't expect to look a shambles but we looked like a pub team

But we didn't look like a pub team. We held the best team in the world for 60 minutes, with a bit more luck and some more favourable reffing we'd have been 12-14 points ahead.
The score blew out at the end partly because we tried 3 or 4 short kick offs which didnt work. We could have been boring and settled for a 12 point loss and kicked the ball long. Australia wouldn't have scored all those tries near the end, the score would have stayed respectable and the story wouldnt be "England destroyed by Australia" but would be "England brave effort falls just short". But we tried to get back into the game.
As Gotcha said, we lack in areas no doubt but we aren't miles behind the Aussies and the NRL. If we were we wouldn't have won the 2nd half of the Aussie game 16-0, we wouldn't have beaten the Kiwis, and we wouldn't have been close for the majority of the game in the final.