Pack it in with the childish squabbling or the thread gets locked.

I don't know where to start with our international side. The SOO shows just how far behind we are. People talk about us getting closer, but we are about as far from the Aussies and to an extent, the Kiwis, as I can remember in my lifetime. Hearing Eddie trying to justify McNamara's stupid comments about the young players 'taking something from the game' made me cringe. As he was corrected, it's not as if the England players have never played against the Exiles before. They play with them/against them week in week out.



People will say we probably would have won if we had Hall, Tomkins etc playing, but that isn't the point. We are talking about the very best players we have to offer, who have trained as a team for a much longer period than the Exiles, being made to look idiots for the 2nd year in a row, yet there appears to be no pressure on McNamara when he shouldn't be within 200 miles of the international set up.



Christ, we might as well bring in Denise Betts to help him out.

Hang on a minute, I've had nothing to do with this, she brought me into it because she can't take her mind off me.

Aye, well lets not dwell on it!

I don't think we have moved a lot closer since, say, the 2008 world cup (when we were atrocious) but if you think back to the Four Nations in 2011 we put up a better fight and some very good individual tries were scored. What we missed in 2011 was two quality halfbacks (and in the case of a 6, just a halfback!). SOO has taken years to develop into what it is now. We have only just started with the Exiles idea and it was way too soon to move it to two games.



Most of all though we need a good coach and we don't have a good coach. If only Daniel Anderson would coach the England team...





Matty Smith has only been in the Knights for five minutes. But aside from that, the noobs might have trained with the England side for a year or so but last night was the first time they had played with them. McBanana made a big error in not playing at least a couple of them - preferably the halfbacks - in the first match. They would then have got over the immediate problem of being both inexperienced and new to the team. The Exiles are the far more experienced players who have a significant number of former internationals in their ranks. They also had absolutely no pressure on them whereas the England players were under the spotlight.

I think you'll find it was a mod who brought you into it.

No, you did

The MOD edited her post because it was a disgrace. Her original post can be seen where I quoted it further back in the thread.

Oh no I didn't ... (it's not Christmas yet is it?)





Posted at 12:44.



That was the first mention of you on this thread. You don't really spring into my mind when I'm posting, Pete.

Hardly a disgrace. A lot less vitriolic than some of the stuff that's been spouted on here before now.



I've spent the last two years of my life in and out of employment so it's not like I didn't know what I was talking about.

I don't think so and neither does McBanana.

He said as much when I heard him talk about his selection process at a forum three days before he picked this Knight level team.



You have to think who out of that team would get in a first choice 17 for England.

Robes - Yes.

Briscoe - Probable.

Atkins. Carvell, Mossop, Charnley and Jones-Buchanan - Possibles.

Thats a long way from saying these are "the very best players we have to offer". OTT.



Is it 5 or 6 players who play in the NRL we have on top of those "rested" on wednesday.



It was clearly no more than a trial and unfortunately most of them failed. In particular Scott Taylor , Farrell, Smith (the goons are welcome to him on that performance) Brough, Ablett and I'm afraid to say, Wilkin were abject.

Of the fringe players I tohugh only Ratchford did himself proud.

Ratchford impressed me. He looked like the only player who was really up for it in the England team. While he still has to sort out his defensive positioning a bit - something that will no doubt come with experience - I thought he looked good at fullback.



Pity we have two strong fullbacks and no halves! I remember when Smith was the national coach and he played Tomkins and Eastmond together in the Four Nations final at Leeds. I thought that at last we had found the halfback pairing for England. They were both still raw but they looked so good.



The fact that neither of them is playing at halfback for England shouldn't mean that we end up playing Sinfield and Chase there though. McBanana should choose the best English halfbacks, with a reserve, and stick with them for a while. Brough may be off form at the moment but that doesn't mean that given the opportunity to play with the team again he won't play much better than he did on Wednesday. Even Robes looked half the player he usually is so I think something more was off kilter on Wednesday than simply a question of playing staff.



The coach maybe? The limited preparation time? Being shoe-horned between two Superleague matches? Inexperience in playing together as a team?