So being part of the England set up under Tony Smith doesn't qualify as a good experience to have.........? Being part of the set up and actually having an idea of what life is like during the set up has surely got to be worth something?!?!?!

And what qualities would you like the England coach to have.............? ! ? ! ? 3 super league titles under his belt .........?

Good luck to Steve M, i hope you do really well and there is nothing more than ANY british rugby league follower wants more is for England to be able to compete with the Aussies and have a great chance of beating them consistently!

No. He means the one who was to be understudy to the great mesiah at Wigan but to bring his boots just in case there's an injury to their superstars ... and now regularly plays 1st team rugby for them.

(How many first class coaches is that'veactually selecetd him to be in their teams? But, of course, they're probably no-marks who've won 'nowt between them

)

No, you're completely wrong there. Wigan - as everyone knows - have the best team, and the best young coach bar none, and are the ones to beat. Anyone who would ever even dream that such an outfit would ever select an old and past-it never-was like Deacon to regularly play 1st team rugby for them must be hallucinating. Tigertot will tell you the lad struck lucky at Bradford, but no 'right' coach would ever pick him in any team.

Let the Fun begin on who is going to replace him, people haven't mentioned Karl Harrison along with the usual suspects.
Will Peter Hood think of appointing a NRL assistant coach seeing as Brown and now McGuire have shown some quality, (using Wayne Bennetts criterea that it can take up to 7 yrs as an assistant before they are ready to step up as Head Coach!)
Those that think Macca will let the Bulls slide now have got that wrong, the one he thing will want, is to see the Bulls to perform strongly for the rest of the season to prove that he can do the job and stick metaphorical two fingers to his detractors and show the RFL they have a hired a quality coach.
I'm just disappointed he chose not to extend his contract for at 2-3 more years, just when the worst seemed over.
As with Nobbygate I'm sure there will be a slow leaking of versions from both camps on this, roll on the next Fans Forum!

No, the one you won with in spite of. Replaced by one walking away with player of the year & turning around your fortunes.

There's nothing wrong with any of that, in fact it's good plain sense.

The biggest problem for England is that over here RL is a fourth rate sport(judged on financial level and media interest) whilst in Aussie it's a big deal. We can boast maybe half a dozen world class players whilst they can put seventeen on the field (and have a further seventeen, just in case); they have better players, more of them and what's more they play, on a weekly basis, in a stronger competition that prepares them better for the big tournaments.

That's why we can only beat them very occasionally and why we can't win the big competitions where it's necessary to beat them at least twice. So, Stevie Mac has got the poisoned chalice; he's won the opportunity to be humiliated on an annual basis, weighed down by misplaced expectation and then, presumably, to be regarded as a failure because he couldn't manage to do the impossible.

As long as we have a situation where far too many kids have either never heard of RL or have no realistic chance of taking it up due to the area they live in, we will never beat the Aussies, and there is no scope for Steve to do anything about that. Until we can persuade much greater numbers of young people to come into the game, changing the England coach will remain, and be as pointless as, shuffling the deckchairs on the Titanic.

I agree with most of that but if you take soccer which is the no1 sport, money just seems to pile into it for certain clubs, they keep telling us they play in the best league in the world, we are told we have enough world class players but they still are unable to win any major tournament ie world cup etc. That seems completely opposite to the Aussies, so are we back to the question of coaching ?

In football decent English coaches are pretty rare too.

McNamara clearly worked hard on that part of the club, so that level of interest in the youth side of things has to be maintained, the board have to make it clear to any potential new coach as part of the recruitment process.

Surely by taking the England job he's crippled his future coaching career?

Enhanced, in my view. That is because I have expectations that he will prove the most successful England/GB coach for some years, and will put in place structures which will reflect well on him. That will be very much a minority view at the moment, so I'm nailing my colours to the mast now.

I usually respect your opinions Adey and hope you are right for the good of GB.
It wont be difficult to be the most successful GB coach as the standard is abysmally low.
Mostly from your comment I would be interested to know what structures you think he will be allowed to put in place.

I saw a fair chunk of his appearance on Boots last night & was extremely impressed with most things he said & am as optimistic about our chances as I always naively am. I'm glad it wasn't a 1 hour interview with Brian Smith though, he is a nightmare.

You can nail mine to it too

And mine.

Could not agree more. And im fairly confident this will be the case.

Like Tony Smith did?

IMO If anyone can do it then Steve can. He won't put up with any pedestrians in the squad. Looking at some of the performances in Australia last time there were quite a few of those.
Having watched the interview last night I'd say he seems determined that he's going to be the one to make a success of the job. It sounded to me like he'd had this goal in mind for years.

I [uhope [/uthat he is given enough time to bed those in.



It was telling, IMHO, that he was talking quite a bit about a number of years down the line.

However, like (i think) BMU, I fear . . .



. . . . instant international gratification/success will be wanted at the expense of putting firm foundations/structures and processes in place.

The here and now front will, I fear, win over the "planning for a successful future" brigade.

Anyone willing to place bets now on how soon the "H & N" will start their mantra?

They've already started, telling us that he's THE worst appointment it was possible to make, that's England RL fecked then, etc. And then whenever Aus beat us they'll be straight out with "see, how useless is he"

Michael Platt, Michael Worrincey & Paul Sykes for England then. Come back Paul Deacon. Is there a scapegoat at Bradford at the moment?

Not now that Worrincy isn't getting a game. Some are still trying to pin it on Sheriffe, but he's been playing fairly well.

I predict Kopczak will be the new one soon.

If it's not Halley, you're not doing your job.

TBH my heart is not in it. I can't fault anyone who tries their best; whether they are good enough is another thing. I said Halley would not last the season as FB before the season started.

I think the only flaw in that (if it is a flaw) is that in most other countries soccer is also the number one sport, so I guess that many places will also be disappointed.