Shaun Wane

[Jughead]

35 minutes ago, OMEGA said:

The group seeding was based on World Ranking, it’s nothing to do with gifting England an easy route to the final.

Dont talk ###### about stuff you’re ignorant about

I didn’t say anything was gifted to England. It wasn’t manufactured to protect England yet it was still the easiest route to a final that they’ve ever had and they’ve failed to reach the final, losing to a tier two nation. Thems the facts sweary Mary. 

[MatthewWoody]

WB was attacked on this very forum for selecting players only via their NRL reputation and now we have a full time coach who picks players only via their Wigan experience.

[Niels]

2 hours ago, Spidey said:

Tonga were ranked second, they earned the right to that route by winning more games than Australia since the last World Cup. Samoa did well to navigate to the final dumping 2nd & 3rd in the World out

Yes I agree with you. 

As you say Samoa did extremely well to beat Tonga then England.

Interestingly, if I am correct, there will have only been one game between the top 4 seeds, Aus v NZ. And the final is between the 4th and 5th seeds? 

It's very interesting how it has all worked out. 

[fighting irish]

22 hours ago, EagleEyePie said:

Surely a lot of those things you mention lie with the players though. What Wane emphasised when he took the role was that he wanted players to focus on detail, on not making errors and keeping it simple. They largely did that in the first few games and then for some reason didn't do it against Samoa. I'm not sure how much you can blame the coach for some of these individual errors from players who are capable of much better. It's not like it would have taken much for England to win that game and those are the fine margins.

These aren't kids who might need a pep talk, or someone to talk them through what they have to do. They are supposed to be elite athletes and I don't think you can blame the coach when they start making errors and bad decisions that are so far from what they had already been doing previously.

I'm not sure I can agree with the 'fear of failure because Wane is patriotic' idea. How many successful players and coaches have trotted out the cliche that it's not the joy of winning that motivates them but the fear of failure. And the players themselves are no doubt patriotic too - it's not like Wane is the only one there for whom being English matters. And also one of the criticisms of Bennett was that he didn't understand the importance of GB when he was made the coach - so in a sense he wasn't patriotic enough. I don't think it matters how patriotic you really are - if you're in a semi final of a world cup winning means everything.

Your last line is true though. Wane has to take responsibility because that's what a coach does. He made mistakes, the players made mistakes.

I think we are largely in agreement here. I certainly wasn't taking issue (disagreeing) with anything you said in your first post. I was merely asking for your thoughts on why this group of elite athletes (who performed so well in the first game) suddenly became so lethargic, timorous and cack-handed.

I agree that the players should know (before they get into the changing rooms) the rules of the game and the tactics the coach wants them to play to, and that we the spectators and the coach should be able to take for granted a certain level of ball handling skill etc. They know also that they are in a Semi Final of the World Cup and don't have to be reminded that if they lose, they are out of the competition. So what then, is the coaches role?

Well in my opinion, it's his job to send them out happy and confident, ready to give it everything they've got. 

I'm not criticising Shaun Wane for being patriotic (I don't really understand your third paragraph) and I'm sure most of the players will feel that passion too. In the main, that's a good thing.

I just found myself wondering what the atmosphere was like in the dressing room prior to the game and whether he might have filled their heads with thoughts of ''Every minute matters, we've got be on top form and the dire consequences of failure, when the entire nation is watching, and all that ''England expects'' blx'', when the truth is they'd still have won even if they'd made just a few less errors. They didn't have to be perfect.

Putting the burden of near perfect performance (even from elite athletes) in the mind of human beings, especially if you use, as part of your motivational speech the shame they will feel if they disappoint the entire nation is disempowering to say the least, psychological poison at worst.

I just think that a dour determination to eliminate error in every facet of play is big on Shaun's agenda and I'd prefer shifting the focus a little towards accepting the players fallibility but encouraging them to stretch towards brilliance. To try and replace the fear of failure with a confident lust for success. 

[fighting irish]

Oh and let's change the national anthem.

Getting the players to re-iterate in song, their acceptance of a slavish, servile and cringingly embarrassing and humiliating devotion to completely unrelated person, reinforcing their poor self concept as lesser human beings, before sending them into the fight of their life, isn't ideal preparation.

Billy Connolly was right, The theme from the Archers would be far more encouraging. 

[Niels]

19 minutes ago, fighting irish said:

I think we are largely in agreement here. I certainly wasn't taking issue (disagreeing) with anything you said in your first post. I was merely asking for your thoughts on why this group of elite athletes (who performed so well in the first game) suddenly became so lethargic, timorous and cack-handed.

I agree that the players should know (before they get into the changing rooms) the rules of the game and the tactics the coach wants them to play to, and that we the spectators and the coach should be able to take for granted a certain level of ball handling skill etc. They know also that they are in a Semi Final of the World Cup and don't have to be reminded that if they lose, they are out of the competition. So what then, is the coaches role?

Well in my opinion, it's his job to send them out happy and confident, ready to give it everything they've got. 

I'm not criticising Shaun Wane for being patriotic (I don't really understand your third paragraph) and I'm sure most of the players will feel that passion too. In the main, that's a good thing.

I just found myself wondering what the atmosphere was like in the dressing room prior to the game and whether he might have filled their heads with thoughts of ''Every minute matters, we've got be on top form and the dire consequences of failure, when the entire nation is watching, and all that ''England expects'' blx'', when the truth is they'd still have won even if they'd made just a few less errors. They didn't have to be perfect.

Putting the burden of near perfect performance (even from elite athletes) in the mind of human beings, especially if you use, as part of your motivational speech the shame they will feel if they disappoint the entire nation is disempowering to say the least, psychological poison at worst.

I just think that a dour determination to eliminate error in every facet of play is big on Shaun's agenda and I'd prefer shifting the focus a little towards accepting the players fallibility but encouraging them to stretch towards brilliance. To try and replace the fear of failure with a confident lust for success. 

I think you have explained a key role of the coach very well. He has to select the players he feels will listen and perform. Then he has to motivate them before kick off, but as you allude to, not overdo this and make them feel anxious. 

I was impressed by Samoa's circle before golden point. They were calmly having a conversation about what to do. There was no fist pumping or hands on hearts, just cool discussion led by Luai and also Crichton.

The Samoa coach knew he had dual NRL winners in the side who knew how to win games so he let them win it. 

I think Wane's reaction at the end though patriotic, might suggest he was too involved and uptight and that this possibly transmitted to the players.

I may be wrong and I accept the point of others that we don't have players who have won the NRL. However does this mean we need a coach who has? Even Woolf, who wins nearly everything here couldn't get Tonga past the QF.

Edited November 14, 2022 by Niels

[Taffy Tiger]

20 hours ago, Niels said:

Yes I agree with you. 

As you say Samoa did extremely well to beat Tonga then England.

Interestingly, if I am correct, there will have only been one game between the top 4 seeds, Aus v NZ. And the final is between the 4th and 5th seeds? 

It's very interesting how it has all worked out. 

May have read this wrong or misunderstood , but Australia not 4th seed . were always top seed 

[Spidey]

4 minutes ago, Taffy Tiger said:

May have read this wrong or misunderstood , but Australia not 4th seed . were always top seed 

Australia are currently ranked 4th in the world

[Taffy Tiger]

5 minutes ago, Spidey said:

Australia are currently ranked 4th in the world

Ah , I see , my apologies . Has to be a lot said as to how the rankings are worked out . Australia a short odds on price of around 1/2 to win WC from the start of the tournament . They were definitely top ranked/seeded side for this tournament , and were 1/5 to beat NZ. Maybe an anomoly with rankings due to covid

 

Edited November 14, 2022 by Taffy Tiger
addition

[Spidey]

2 minutes ago, Taffy Tiger said:

Ah , I see , my apologies . Has to be a lot said as to how the rankings are worked out . Australia a short odds on price of around 1/2 to win WC from the start of the tournament . They were definitely top ranked/seeded side for this tournament , and were 1/5 to beat NZ. Maybe an anomoly with rankings due to covid

 

There is some logic surrounding the rankings, I'm sure its explained on the IRL website. Australia dropped as they didn't play enough and lost to Tonga in the time since the last World Cup

[Taffy Tiger]

4 minutes ago, Spidey said:

There is some logic surrounding the rankings, I'm sure its explained on the IRL website. Australia dropped as they didn't play enough and lost to Tonga in the time since the last World Cup

Yeah , makes sense , thanks Spidey

[redjonn]

On 13/11/2022 at 12:46, MatthewWoody said:

It's happened from the beginning. They always did look for the extra pass and didn't deliver. They were thus often exposed to Samoa. 

In the 1st half they didn't kick the penalty and waster the Samoan sin bin.

It was a disaster but hey he's an Englishman so it's ok.

At least McNamara lost to a great team thanks to a great play by SJ.

 

I still don't get why they didn't the penalty, either one early on. In big games you should always take the 2 points early on...

[MatthewWoody]

 

from 29:11, exactly my thoughts on selections. 

Edited November 15, 2022 by MatthewWoody

[Dave T]

On 13/11/2022 at 15:54, Niels said:

Yes I agree with you. 

As you say Samoa did extremely well to beat Tonga then England.

Interestingly, if I am correct, there will have only been one game between the top 4 seeds, Aus v NZ. And the final is between the 4th and 5th seeds? 

It's very interesting how it has all worked out. 

Irrespective of the rankings, the tournament has once again provided that bit of unpredictability. Unfortunately England have suffered as part of that but we'd be celebrating if they had beat the Aussies or Kiwis. 

At QF stage we almost saw the Kiwis bow out versus Fiji, we saw Samoa knock out the highly fancied Tonga, we saw the Aussies win a tight semi final against the Kiwis and then Samoa beat England. 

I'm not sure anyone was putting money on these two teams meeting in the final this year, nor England making it in 2017 (had it gone to seeding it'd have been Eng v Kiwis in NZ in the semi). 

As disappointing as it is for England, this is surely what we want international tournaments to be? 

[EagleEyePie]

24 minutes ago, MatthewWoody said:

 

from 29:11, exactly my thoughts on selections. 

I never thought I'd watch a video with Mick Gledhill and him not be the most annoying part of it but that guy with the white hair is unbearable.

[Gomersall]

11 minutes ago, EagleEyePie said:

I never thought I'd watch a video with Mick Gledhill and him not be the most annoying part of it but that guy with the white hair is unbearable.

You can’t knock him, he called it. 

[Eddie]

29 minutes ago, EagleEyePie said:

I never thought I'd watch a video with Mick Gledhill and him not be the most annoying part of it but that guy with the white hair is unbearable.

I think he used to own Doncaster RL club. 

[jacksy]

Our never-ending desire to seem to be fair and play by the rules doesn't help us.

Two of the Samoans should have been banned for the SF and at least one possibly two should have been sent off in the SF for that horrendous spear tackle on Burgess.

[Jughead]

1 hour ago, EagleEyePie said:

I never thought I'd watch a video with Mick Gledhill and him not be the most annoying part of it but that guy with the white hair is unbearable.

Isn’t that “Show Me The Money” as he likes to call himself? Completely agree on him being unbearable, mind. 

[Jughead]

1 hour ago, jacksy said:

Our never-ending desire to seem to be fair and play by the rules doesn't help us.

Two of the Samoans should have been banned for the SF and at least one possibly two should have been sent off in the SF for that horrendous spear tackle on Burgess.

Didn’t they go down to fifteen for ten minutes when Paulo was binned and Brown (I think it was him) went off after a head knock? England didn’t capitalise on that period of extra men available to them. 

[dkw]

14 hours ago, Jughead said:

Didn’t they go down to fifteen for ten minutes when Paulo was binned and Brown (I think it was him) went off after a head knock? England didn’t capitalise on that period of extra men available to them. 

Showed the folly of not having a replacement hooker on the bench, specifically one who would run from acting half as that would have been the perfect time to unleash him. Instead we had Mccllorum meandering around throwing loopy passes to slow everything down.

[Jemmo]

18 hours ago, Eddie said:

I think he used to own Doncaster RL club. 

Yes, Craig Harrison was the Dons chairman during the Ellery Hanley/Luke Gale era. He is also a player agent

[Harry Stottle]

On 12/11/2022 at 17:11, EagleEyePie said:

England coach will ever win anything until we have a team capable of it. Its utterly pointless to keep changing the coach when we've seen pretty much nothing change as a result.

But we keep selecting coaches that are produced from the same mould, get someone in with different ideas, I thought that the best our national team has performed was when Paul Deacon was an assistant and brought in a different perspective, in time that would have been fruitful but we just let him go.

[Liverpool Rover]

On 13/11/2022 at 12:46, EagleEyePie said:

Surely a lot of those things you mention lie with the players though. What Wane emphasised when he took the role was that he wanted players to focus on detail, on not making errors and keeping it simple. They largely did that in the first few games and then for some reason didn't do it against Samoa. I'm not sure how much you can blame the coach for some of these individual errors from players who are capable of much better. It's not like it would have taken much for England to win that game and those are the fine margins. 

Wane is the type of coach that instead of encouraging the players to keep playing the way they did in the PNG game he would have spent the whole time complaining about PNGs 6 points. He does put a lot of detail into his coaching so maybe overcoaches at times, but maybe before the semi final he should have just said “the important thing is that we win, even if we end up making 20 errors in the process.” That might have got the players in a more positive frame of mind than putting all the focus on not making any errors and putting the players under more pressure than what they would have been feeling.

 

 

[JohnM]

9 hours ago, Liverpool Rover said:

Wane is the type of coach that instead of encouraging the players to keep playing the way they did in the PNG game he would have spent the whole time complaining about PNGs 6 points. He does put a lot of detail into his coaching so maybe overcoaches at times, but maybe before the semi final he should have just said “the important thing is that we win, even if we end up making 20 errors in the process.” That might have got the players in a more positive frame of mind than putting all the focus on not making any errors and putting the players under more pressure than what they would have been feeling.

 

 

That's a remarkable insight into Wane's coaching methods. Where did you learn that?