Is it just me who thinks our three quarters would be more effective if we swapped the wingers over? Burgess has played left next to Bateman all year and Ryan Hall can play right wing and plays with Watkins.

Everyone harping on about the halves and redundant three quarters but imo this performance lies solely at the door of McNamara and his game plan, or lack of. You could see from minute one that all we were trying to do was barge up the middle and work off the back of quick plays, which rarely happened.It was the same last week, only reason we won was the fact we were given several penalties and turnover ball at the start of the second period and the Kiwis ran out of steam allowing us to score a couple of barge over tries.Yesterday they smartened up and cut all that out which meant we were made to look clueless.

I'm undecided what i want to see more on saturday, an England grind out win to take the series and McNamara keeps his job, which imo would be disasterous for us moving forward or a defeat which will enforce the changes desperately needed if we are to make the next step and beat the NZ and OZ in big games.

And so the inter club bickering begins.

The wigan contingent were appalling yesterday.

Bateman looked like he'd be better off on the building site and williams was like a school boy amongst men.

The coach has to go after this series. Regardless of who he picks there doesn't appear to be many options in attack and the players don't look confident,a real contrast to when they play for their clubs...this is down to him!.

The coach doesn't even live here, so he can't watch current squad or potential players "in the flesh live" to form judgements?

The loss yesterday was 1 part wrong team selection and 9 parts criminally conservative game plan .


I can only think they saw the rain and said play safety first and wait for the kiwis to spill the ball trying to offload.

Although you could swap a few players round to improve the squad, if this team were coached to play a more expansive game they would have a great chance of winning.

Swapping say McGuie for williams would have had zero difference in yesterday's game.

Not quite there’s one or two, myself included, but apparently it was simply down to the game plan rather than a lack of interaction between payers.

Just reading this thread shows the back-biting between certain clubs & I think it spills over onto the field. The Watkins / Hall combination would have more synergy as their comfortable together at club level.

You're having a laugh aren't you? McGuire is the best big game half back in SL. One of, if not [ithe[/i, best player on the pitch in all three of Leeds' recent finals. And has been their leading HB in a season they won the treble. How he's not in this team is utterly baffling! (and this isn't in hindsight neither, I've been saying this since the squad was announced)

Williams has had a decent season for a young lad but you only have to see the difference between his nothing performance in the GF and McGuire's Harry Sunderland performance to see the difference at the top level. Williams will end up being a decent player but he's not there yet. I'd still have him in the squad for the experience though, he's deserved that much. But to have Matty Smith in that squad and no McGuire and then to see the tactics in the last two weeks shows what this coach knows about halfbacks.

You cannot lay any criticism at any outside backs really neither. The back row was abysmal yesterday, they (in conjunction with the HBs) didn't create any space for the centres or full back to join in the attack in any way whatsoever. I'm not even sure you can blame the back row for their inept performances yesterday neither as I'm laying that at the coach's tactics; which were appalling!

What he said above well said

I feel the key to an england victory next week is for more huddersfield players to be selected.

The worst part about yesterday was that it was a great opportunity to build further interest in the sport in London and we blew it. A woeful "performance" that will drive away many potential fans of the future. McBanana should have been under strict orders to entertain the crowd yesterday.

strange comment

this.

what a massive opportunity for RL to take a potential massive leap forward, off the back of a nation in mourning for the rah-rah's failures, live on free to air tv at a very good time on a saturday afternoon..., with not much else in the live sports stakes, ...in the capital city, in the olympic stadium which was the scene of this countries greatest sporting achievements in a decade,
we had a massive chance to turn it out and beat the best in the world in a test series and we blew it, absolutely blew it!, dire rugby league that was probably just as bad as the union team, poor atmosphere, wonder how many curious non leaguies turned up because it was an event to attend, only to shake their heads and stick to watching union or premier league borefests!

I thought Hall was gash, jogged back for the kick that got him pushed out the back (after not figuring out that they were kicking to the empty space behind him) , got drawn in far too easily for their try when there was no need to and left the winger with a free run in.
Drop Hall bring Jerry in, Lockers wants dropping, he's shiate, I'd rather keep whitehead tbh, Williams has had his chance and shown he's not up to international standard so Gale needs bringing in. I don't care if he's undercooked Williams has being really average in both games for a supposed hotshot kid and showed no spark whatsoever.
I spent £70 for travel/ticket going up to Hull last week though had a good excuse to visit the folks & the game was a bit lacklustre, however yesterday was disgusting and I felt it was an utter waste of money & my time.
Incredibly negative, short sighted and completely lacking in any creation whatsoever, nothing. It was as I said in another thread yesterday as if we went in to try not lose the game as opposed to trying to win it, that's no way to play rugby or any sport for that matter, at any level.

Lockers defended very well, certainly better than Whitehead, who offered nothing. Williams had a poor game, but whatever 'spark' England did have in that first match came from him.

I didn't enjoy the day much either, but I'll be at the DW next week and am confident we'll see a much better display on 'home' territory.

To be honest as a Leeds fan I can't recall a time when Hall and Watkins ever played on the same side of the field together. It's always been Watkins Right Side and Hall Left Side.

Yes agree 100%. Golden chance wasted.

Yeah because we done so so well when the England squad is largely made up of Leeds/Wigan players!

I've just watched the whole match again on TV. On TV it did not look as dire and pedestrian as it did live although Brian Noble's comments indicated it was poor.

What I hadn'y appreciated live was just how bad Bateman was - looked too lightweight and kept losing the ball and getting pushed over too easily. Williams was a waste of a jersey - he was ttally anonymous (just how I saw it live). To be honest I still haven't worked out where on the pitch he hid for most of the game! Seemed to have no involvement whatsoever.

Overall, NZ had a game plan to get back in the series and iron out their shortcomings and did so. We should have tried to win the game but were too negative. To me NZ have built a platform from which they could improve to take the 3rd Test. We have confused ourselves by going backwards. Both teams can improve for next week. The result will depend on who does it best. I think Kearney is a legend - bth as player and coach so I would now place NZ firm favourites. If they take it out it will be purely due to coavching for me as this is a series England should have won 3-0.

There's only 3 leeds players in the entire squad.

Considering the trophy haul of leeds and wigan over the years, we certainly wouldn't do any better without their best english players.

Sorry, but those bashing bashing Bateman must have been watching a different game. I suggest you watch it back again. Took the ball up well, made a couple of breaks and was solid in defence. Arguably did more with the ball than most of our backs combined...

All this my team's players are better than your team's players is pathetic. They haven't picked themselves for the team, that muppet of a coach picked them. Any blame lies firmly at his feet - part of me wants us to lose next week to see him lose the job, but a series win would be good. IMO he should lose it for not beating this lot 3-0. They're a decent side, but we should be beating this particular group...

One thing is for sure and that is if our half backs (whoever they are for the 3rd test) play that badly again we will lose the series.
We need our half backs to take control from the kick off.

Agreed on both points. The Bateman bashing seems to be a bandwagon, which I'm sure wouldn't be borne out by the stats (which, BTW, I've been unable to find. Any ideas, anyone?). Don't get me wrong, he didn't have a great game, few did, but he hardly merited especial criticism; his contributions with the ball were generally positive.

Even the TV commentator got frustrated saying Bateman's dropped it again!

Bateman had a good game and posed problems, running hard and defending well. He was certainly one of our better players. The "drop" the commentator referred to was Bateman offloading and hitting the tackler, at a time when few other players were seemingly trying to do much to get the necessary score.

Williams having a nightmare was 75% of the problem.

Yes, I heard him. I stand by my contention that he was no worse than anyone else, and better than several.