Dave T

I expect his wage demands were too high for those clubs. But I am surprised one of the lower half SL clubs couldn't make a move.

Thats fair. I think benefits of either system are overstated, and I just believe that it is one of those personal preference kind of arguments that will just go round and round. Im not sure personally that the system used is the biggest thing at play here. I sway towards a closed top league personally, mainly because I think it allows for strategic expansion clubs to be i produced, without the worry of fairness with small historic clubs. There is a direct conflict there. What licensing can't do is compensate for a poorly run or under-funded club.

Im not sure that is a feature of licensing though. London have just been a team finishing between 11th and 22nd in the pyramid for the last 15 years. During those licensing years they finished in the 'relegation' slot only once.

Yes, of course he may have turned down everything here, but its a slightly strange one in that he did return over here from Oz. Whether that was to avoid Wire having any breach of contract claims or whether he was genuinely open to stay we'll never know I suppose. Im surprised he didnt go to York or Toulouse.

It really can't be overstated how bad Powell was at Wire. People can try and blame the club all they want, but he took over a club that had finished 4th, 4th, 3rd, 3rd on the ladder under the last coach, winning the Cup and losing a Grand Final. He had substantial investment and destroyed that team and took Wire to their lowest league finish in 34 years. The way he favoured the likes of Peter Matautia showed a level of misguided stubbornness that easily beats Shaun Wane. That said, Powell has plenty of credit from other roles, and I was very happy when he was announced at Wire, and an England role would be very different, but those stubborn selections of his favourites is a red flag. Burgess should be nowhere near either.

Obviously I dont know the details behind him being moved on, other than it not being bad enough to be sacked for, but Im stunned that in a comp with so many weaker teams that he couldnt find a club over here at first grade.

Indeed. These meet different needs.

I didnt start this chat.

I understand how frustrating it is for Bulls fans when people keep making digs without backing it up, but this was ultimately the point that people raised when Wood took over. It looks dodgy. Bradford were 14th, then 16th, and then Wood took over and they leapt to 10th. The truth will be that it is a real life example of flaws in the rankings, but when we dont have transparency around the scoring (and when the Bulls do publish something it has typos) it becomes hard to dismiss people's concerns. We shouldn't forget that there is a good chance of Wood returning to the Bulls at some stage in the near future. So in reality, not dodgy, but its a horrendous look for the sport, one which was called out when the coup happened.

Its the rugby league way. Spend all your time focusing on clubs 10th to 16th and basing strategies on keeping them happy.

Its also a different landscape. Perth Bears have 3.7k Facebook followers, some SL clubs have many times more that.

And tbh, lets be clear, we havent won tournaments for decades, but the odd win against the Aussies to maintain hope would be nice! I would say, under McNamara and Bennet despite still losing, we looked like we could get a win (we do need to remember we lost a WC Final in Australia by only 6 to nil), and lost in a 4N by a fingertip. We were very close to them. And that was also without NRL players.

On your first para, I don't think we need to aim for parity in this first instance. If we look at 2008 onwards, when we moved to become England, we have played 14 and lost all of them. a 0% win record. In that same period the Kiwis have played them 31 times, beating them 7, a 23% win record. Based on England's win record versus the Kiwis in the same period (47% wins), we really should be expecting to have picked up the odd win against the Aussies during that same period. Even if we accept that the NRL intensity factor gives a boost, it does feel like we are massively underperforming based on us being relatively level with the Kiwis. Of course there are many other factors to look at, frequency of games, plus home advantage (NH and SH is a huge factor) - but it does feel like we've underperformed results wise. We have to acknowledge issues that hamper us, but I do think even within those contsraints, pure Rugby reasons like coaches and selections are an issue.

However that doesn't really help them when they play us. I do think there is something in your point, and we have seen that we have lost many close(ish) games against the Aussies where we struggle to get over the line, and there is a fair argument that the NRL experience of higher pressure/intensity helps the Kiwis there, but the discrepancy in results versus the Aussies between us and the Kiwis is marked and I think it is more than just this. The Kiwis have done well at times with an average coach and at times makeshift halfbacks etc.

I think we need to use the Kiwis as an inspiration here. They dont have the best structures, best coaching setups, best players etc. but they are a very good big-game team. We have shown that we can do well against the Kiwis but have a terrible record against the Aussies, whereas the Kiwis have done very well against the Aussies. We are where we are in terms of plans for this year, we need to choose a person that is right for this year, who will pick the right team, with the right game plan and it probably doesn't need too much overthinking. I think there are a handful of coaches who can do a job in a one off tournament and do well. We probably need some luck, particularly around injuries, but imo we massively under-performed in the Ashes, against a Kangaroos team that would probably have lost against the Kiwis. Be the best we can this year, take it a match at a time, see what happens. Don't suffocate ourselves with pressure and go and enjoy it.