The World Cup

Fools are now totally abusing Steve McNamara,a fine servant to Fartown football.

Does this finally tell you all you need to know about Fools.

He might have been a good player in his time but his management skills are less than useless, how he got the England job god knows, the sooner he goes the better. IMO Brough, Big Eorl and Lunty should all be in the England squad but our glorious leader in all his wisdom has decided otherwise. The man was a disaster at Bradford and he hasn't shown any signs of improvement whilst in charge of the England team. First of all he was going to pick "form" players, now he's changed his tack and say's he's going with "big game" players, what a load of tosh. Think the only "fools" are Mcbanana and the idiots who gave him the job in the first place.

Just find it somewhat ironic that if you dare to criticise Grix,you cop dogs abuse,but yet then it's fair game to slag off a fine former player.

Maybe time to let it go now.

They are slagging off McBanarama (LOL) as the England coach,fair enough,yet he could not do much worse than some of his predecessors,including super coach Tony Smith who's WC down under with England was nothing short of total embarrassment.

FWIW IMO,Mossop & Hill should be starting props for England,I love Eorl (& Koppy),but maybe Eorl has been asked to fight too many battles this season.WC football is a step up from SL,it's about picking the players you think could best handle that transition IMO.

Totally agree with you about Brough & Lunt though,it's a disaster why DB is not in there,you would think his kicking game would be absolutely vital in an arm wrestle v ANZ.Lunt reminds me of Cam Smith,good footballing brain,but can only think SM knows we will lose the ruck vs ANZ so picks strong men like MicMac who will put in the defensive hits/strength.Roby is a 1 trick pony who rolls forward on the back of ruck wins,but if the ruck is being lost pretty much ineffective.

Looking forward to the WC,as ever the opening game v Aus so vital,beat them & avoid NZ in semi final.We have got the forward power to match them,the worry is the kicking game no Broughy,frightening to think Chase,Widdop,Sir Kev & Burrow will be the halves combo,frightening.Sir Kev too slow for international football,Rangi gives up as many tries with his D as he might create,Widdop slow,relies on Cronk,Slater& Smith to make him look anywhere near good enough,Burrow they must be kidding,no kicking game whatsoever.

Well after todays defeat (against the mighty Italians) where does Macbanana go from here.    
Hope he's got a bloody fantastic plan B.   

The sooner Macbanana and whoever appointed him for the England job go the better   

There were any number of England interchanges going on in this warm up game apparently.

Leroy did not impress by all accounts.

But ATEOTD what happens next Saturday is all that truly matters.

Like we went to Stains for a friendly this time,looked pish,then went back a couple of weeks later and dicked them when it mattered.

Said it before we have the forwards to match Aus,but very worried about our halves.

Hock kicked out,shame,would have loved to see that psycho taking it to th'aussies.Him and another psychopath in Westwood up against a back row of Thaiday,Bird & Gallen would have been very interesting in the opening exchanges,there would have bound to have been a brawl.What is wrong with having a few drinks after a game,helps them wind down,as long as it doesn't turn into a stupid booze-athon. Steve Mac now walked out on press conference,the build up has not gone smoothly,that is an understatement.

This will be our pick I believe :-

Sam Tomkins
Josh Charnley, Leroy Cudjoe, Kallum Watkins, Ryan Hall
Kevin Sinfield (c), Rangi Chase
Sam Burgess
Ben Westwood, George Burgess
Chris Hill, James Roby, Lee Mossop

Carl Ablett, Thomas Burgess, Rob Burrow, Liam Farrell

[Brett Ferres,Gareth Widdop]

Leroy up against Brent Webb (unless he chooses Ablett and puts Ferres to bench) better than being up against Inglis,good luck Kallum Watkins.

If our pack and interchange forwards can front up for 80 minutes and not the usual 60 we stand a fair chance but Aus look very strong in all depts,just wonder if their 2nd rowers are a weakness in that they are middle channel men mainly, not natural line runners off the ball,that may just give us an opportunity.

I was wrong,or should that be Steve Mac was wrong,Eorl should have been picked ahead of both Hill & Mossop on that showing.People seem to be pleased with Hill's effort,but I thought he got owned for the most part,stopped on the ad line far too often,unable to win his ruck,then when he got into some space in their red zone in half one he inexplicably threw the ball away,and compounded that by flopping on an early tackle of their resulting exit. Mossop had a mare when he was introduced,looked well off the physicality needed against the Aussies.

My view:-
STomkins 7.5 - Good overall performance,not quite able to manufacture enough space to produce the x factor.
Charnley 6 - Got owned,needs to step up the aggression on kick returns. Lackadasical track back and foot in touch cost us a try.
Leroy 8 - Very solid defensively as we expect,well taken try,couldn't be blamed for the Slater or Morris tries imo,jam in or stay out it was a 50/50 call on both.Had he let the Aus front runner through leading to the Morris try he would have been slammed by pundits.
Watkins 8 - Good defensively,spot on with his decision making,not given the space to make an impact on attack.
Hall 7 - Can finish well,tracks sideways across the line a bit too often for mine.
Sir Kev 7 - Played his part,didn't get the space after the first 30 minutes,kicking game,not as good as Broughy.Great work for our opening try.
Chase 7 - Same as Sir Kev,didn't get the space,but some bone crunching edge defence,full marks to him for that.
SamB 8 - Gave 110% to the cause,maybe trying a bit too hard to do it all came up with errors.Shame he fell off Slater,but where was STomkins?
Ferres 8 - The headbutt kid really took it to them,a fine debut,just couldn't quite get his arms free on some carries in the way we are accustomed to seeing.
Westwood 7.5 - Always makes metres on his carries in test football,just concerns over his fitness at the very top level.
Hill 7 - Tough baptism,but will be better for this in the long run
Roby 8.5 - Take it all back,excellent work around the ruck in a typical none stop performance.
GeorgeB 9 - Magnificent,knows the level of physicality required to take on the Aussies,plus I thought he got that ball down fair and square and a try should have been awarded.Brought back too early for his second spell towards end of half one.

TomB 6 - Horrible gaffe when he fumbled up the middle channel,really was a momentum swinger,but despite that got dragged off too early imo.
Ablett 7 - did his graft but unable to have much impact from the interchange.
Widdop 7 - Hard for him to influence things significantly from the interchange.
Mossop 5 - Harder he tried the worse it got.

For the NZ game I would put SamB to prop,and someone like Lockers to 13,but not sure if Lockers is really quick enough at the top level.Burrow to bench,as sniping as always troubled the ANZ,in the style of Luke Robinson.Stick with TomB too,ask Eorl to return,but doing great calling in the TV studio though,wish Wilkin would wind his neck in a bit.

I don't disagree with much of that, I thought when Tom B and Mossop came on England lost all momentum. Tom B not yet ready, Mossop not big enough for an international prop and got physically dominated. If Sean O'Loughlin and James Graham are available for the knock out games I expect Sam B will go to prop and Tom B/Mossop will drop oot entirely.

Good to see Brett Ferres go so well, I thought he was England's best 2nd rower.

I share your concern about Westwood, the guy has the heart of a lion but the brain of a, well I don't know what but something very stupid. Willing carries, great defensive workrate all undone by several stupid penalties at key moments. I thought Ablett went ok and his versatility is likely to see him always in the 17.

TomB did not impress much again yesterday unfortunately.Shame because his size we could do with him firing.Graham went well,a typical performance from him,often running to the line as if to drive it up before turning and passing.That tactic set up plenty of impressive second man plays as we then spread it.Credit must go to Steve Mac for our structure.

Leroy & Brett just like playing for Fartown,difference being in this one Brett was able to get his arms free and send it wide.

Second half play deteriorated along with the weather.

Westwood I am not sure is fit enough,I recall one of his Wire teammates saying he was a poor trainer,he can get away with it in many rounds of SL & versus WC minnows but not against ANZ. Goal line defence is where he tends to get exposed,but he does knock Aus backwards on his carries.

I've been surprised about how poor PNG have been this tournament. USA have done better than I expected. Overall some good entertaining close games.

Interesting that about Westwood, he can also probably get away with it in the monster pack that Wire have, but he did struggle in the Grand Final and I recall the CC semi where Gareth Ellis completely dominated him. Our own Joe Wardle handled him pretty well defensively in the Final Eliminator or whatever its called. In fairness BW does carry the ball up very well and wins loads of collisions, but he has an amazing aptitude for giving away dopey penalties at the worst possible moment.

Broughy and Fergie doing well for Scotland, I went up to Derwent Park on Sunday, that was a right ding dong match. The Scottish run on pack is a decent unit, they would hold there own in the middle of super league. Brough and Wallace both classy in the halves, better than anything else available to a GB select, Henderson is a very decent hooker too. The Italian Pack were even better than the Scots but they were balanced by the three Scots playmakers. Amazingly one of these teams could now go out the World Cup without losing a match!!!!

That's the difference between the SL & NRL,Westwood knows in SL, with so many low intensity games,he can make one goal line tackle,then just clock off for a minute to get his breath back,but vs Aus you can't afford to clock off for a split second cos the ball gets shifted around so quick.Been the same for the last 40 years in general for GB,and it still appears to be no different in 2013 sadly.

Scotland doing okay,I think we should take Addy off Bfd.Wallace is a very efficient half back.

France vs Samoa is a great contest I'm watching just now.What a couple of professional comms Vossy & Daryl are,the best going around imo.

So on to the semi finals, can't see past Fiji, but in the other one, things could be interesting. NZ are very good attacking wise, but I went to see them playing Scotland (the land of my birth) in the quarters. I was impressed by the kiwis attacking but think they can be beaten. Scotland's first 13 actually did ok against them, but they suffered with the interchanges.

Scotland managed 5 or 6 really good positions only to drop/throw into touch on most of them, England will take those chances. NZ have one big winger, but he really isn't any bigger than Leroy, or Ryan Hall and not much bigger than Watkins, Charnley is pretty broad too, the rest of the NZ three quarters are very quick but not at all big. If England can physically dominate them that could be the key, if England can get Ferres, Leroy, Hall, Westwood, Watkins & Charnley decent ball in attacking areas I think the NZ edges will give up a few points. I would be tempted to replace Westwood with Ablett for tactical reasons, but doubt Steve Mac is thinking that way.

NZ will not be easy, but I think England can do it and then I will be off to Old Trafford to cheer them on (what a Scot supporting England???)

We lost in the end because our ob's were not able to finish off some superb approach play.Can't help but think Broughy would have won us that SF with his short kicking game in behind the up rushing NZ ob's trying to disrupt our shift.Sir Kev had a decent game,linking with Widdop but is a bit predictable and doesn't have the quick feet like Dan.

Leroy I thought might get some stick for his display,but he was playing on the wrong edge for his natural game,and let's face it the decoy lines were mainly going through when we shifted it left to right,trying to get STomkins into a gap.Widdop also was happy enough to bring a forward back on the inside when we did shift it towards the left edge.

Shame in the end the great work of our forwards was for nought, Sam B, Roby & Graham were absolutely immense.