If England go on and win the tournament will not picking Brough still be a mistake ?

great.

I bet he wish had Brough available right now.

His mistake has come back to bite him in the rear.

I've no idea as to whether there is any truth is the 'Chase has been a naughty boy' notion....

But I can't think of another good reason why McNamara would stick with Chase for the past two years, despite everyone seeing that he doesn't work in the system that England play, and then drop him for the single most important game in McNamara's reign for a guy who has barely played for weeks

Unless, of course, McNamara really doesn't have a clue

Well I certainly won't miss him in the England team, it was a joke that he was even there in the first place to be honest. I could almost understand if he was some sort of world beater that we thought could win us the World Cup but IMO he over-rated.

If he played on Saturday there'd be a lot of winding going on from his erstwhile countrymen and, with his temperament, he's likely to become a liability pretty quickly. So maybe best to leave him out against NZ even if you think he deserves a place.

Personally I'd choose Burrow and Widdop for halves. Burrow will scare the pants of all those massive blokes, they're just not used to tackling garden gnomes on motor bikes where they come from

I'd put the 'drop Chase because the NZers will wind him up' in the same category as 'play McIlorum because he will get in their face'. That is total rubbish. The reason he has logically been dropped is he hasn't performed satisfactorily & kept to the game plan. I thought his defence & control against Aus was magnificent but, unfortunately, we need a HB to be creative in attack as well, especially with Sinfield at other HB. Whether Widdop can be that I don't know. I've hardly ever seen him play, however he is obviously very highly thought of down under.
Overall MacNamara (I have refrained from Banana out of respect) has done better than my low expectations. The Brough issue has happened, until we know the reasoning you have to believe McN did it on principle. Similarly he had little option with Hock & Hardaker. He has dropped the non-performing players, the likes of McIlorum, Mossop, Farrell (who Stevie Wonder could see are not world class), & made a brave (or stupid) decision to change the HBs before the SF. This game could make or break McN's coaching reputation.