If picking an England team Now

[daz39]

5 hours ago, Gomersall said:

Who from?

The 2024 Challenge Cup winners

[Hopie]

4 hours ago, WN83 said:

England played extremely well up until that semi final. It is something that seems to be totally forgotten about however. 

I disagree, my memories of the tournament was that they played well in patches, and then not so well for parts of games too. There were basic errors and periods where England were going through the motions in each game, it only mattered in one game because the other games were against sides either not trying or not of the standard required.
What I wanted to see was competition for places based on performance as I said above, but also a steady build towards that 80 minute performance that we needed to win the tournament (see RLWC 2017 and compare the first game to the last), I think we basically stayed at the same level throughout and the players cracked the first time they were put under any sort of pressure. 

[Mojo]

11 hours ago, Stanley30 said:

I think people rightly focus on the fact that that there was a 60 point swing in it. 

How the hell u got from 60-6 win to a 26-20 loss is shocking .

The rest doesn't matter

You are looking at that 60-6 game way too much. Let's be real Samoa had the most players at the nrl grandfinal out of all the nations, and they played a fresh English team who's been in camp for months. Stephen Critchon was on a podcast saying he thought most of the grand final boys wouldn't play the first game because they were jet lagged and they only just arrived a few days before the first game. If England won that first game in a close match no one would've been shocked at the semi final result 

 

[WN83]

14 hours ago, Stanley30 said:

I think people rightly focus on the fact that that there was a 60 point swing in it. 

How the hell u got from 60-6 win to a 26-20 loss is shocking .

The rest doesn't matter

We bombed the semi but lets be real, the 60 point victory was a freak result, so pointless comparing it to that. We should've got the job done in that semi final, no complaints with that but we were excellent across the rest of the tournament and how people can say that didn't matter is beyond me. It's basically forgotten about so people can hammer the coach about that semi final. In 'proper' internationals, Shaun Wane has coached England in a World Cup and a series against Tonga. We've played well throughout a huge percentage of that and got one game badly wrong. 

[WN83]

10 hours ago, Hopie said:

I disagree, my memories of the tournament was that they played well in patches, and then not so well for parts of games too. There were basic errors and periods where England were going through the motions in each game, it only mattered in one game because the other games were against sides either not trying or not of the standard required.
What I wanted to see was competition for places based on performance as I said above, but also a steady build towards that 80 minute performance that we needed to win the tournament (see RLWC 2017 and compare the first game to the last), I think we basically stayed at the same level throughout and the players cracked the first time they were put under any sort of pressure. 

Games before the semi-

Samoa-Outstanding.

France-Not bad.

Greece-No win situation but scored 94 points, so can't do much more.

PNG-Outstanding.

 

Out of interest, who are these players you felt didn't get the chance to play their way in to the side? and who is it you wanted leaving out? 

 

 

Edited April 18 by WN83

[Archie Gordon]

The jury must still be out on Wane. But not his fault that England haven't crossed paths with NZ or Aus yet or even played a game outside of Europe.

[WN83]

6 minutes ago, Archie Gordon said:

The jury must still be out on Wane. But not his fault that England haven't crossed paths with NZ or Aus yet or even played a game outside of Europe.

I wouldn't have an issue with that because of that reason and because of the semi final. I can't deny we made an absolute mess of that semi final and it's his biggest game so far but I can't have it that much could be questioned about all of our other competitive fixtures. We were told Samoa would beat us in the opener, PNG would push us (and some said they'd beat us) and we were told Tonga were better than us going in to the test series last year. All were dispatched pretty comfortably (and against Tonga we had some of our best players missing). 

Wane and the side need some big fixtures, no doubts about that. 

[Hopie]

7 hours ago, WN83 said:

Games before the semi-

Samoa-Outstanding.

France-Not bad.

Greece-No win situation but scored 94 points, so can't do much more.

PNG-Outstanding.

 

Out of interest, who are these players you felt didn't get the chance to play their way in to the side? and who is it you wanted leaving out? 

 

 

You're entitled to your opinion, these things are subjective, but when you say things like outstanding and extremely well relating to England performance at RLWC21 then I just think your opinions are too far away from mine to have a meaningful discussion.

 

7 hours ago, Archie Gordon said:

The jury must still be out on Wane. But not his fault that England haven't crossed paths with NZ or Aus yet or even played a game outside of Europe.

I'd say he was at least partially at fault for us not making the World Cup final where we would have played Australia.

Edited April 18 by Hopie

[Dunbar]

8 hours ago, WN83 said:

Games before the semi-

Samoa-Outstanding.

France-Not bad.

Greece-No win situation but scored 94 points, so can't do much more.

PNG-Outstanding.

 

Out of interest, who are these players you felt didn't get the chance to play their way in to the side? and who is it you wanted leaving out? 

 

 

 

13 minutes ago, Hopie said:

You're entitled to your opinion, these things are subjective, but when you say things like outstanding and extremely well relating to England performance at RLWC21 then I just think your opinions are too far away from mine to have a meaningful discussion.

I kind of land in the middle of these two.

The France and Greece games were not an issue, we were always going to win.

We had to play well 3 times in that comp (it would have been 4 if we had got to the final).

The first game we had to play well to top the group and get the tournament off to a flier.  We exceeded expectations and were very good (even if Samoa were poor).

Against PNG we easily saw off a potentially tricky opponent so we were good.

In the semi we didn't execute and just didn't play with the passion that the occasion warranted.

So...

Very good

Good

Poor

What's the average there!

 

Edited April 18 by Dunbar

[WN83]

1 hour ago, Hopie said:

You're entitled to your opinion, these things are subjective, but when you say things like outstanding and extremely well relating to England performance at RLWC21 then I just think your opinions are too far away from mine to have a meaningful discussion.

 

 

What would make you say they played outstanding/extremely well in the opener? Or the PNG game? Maybe 80 points against Samoa and 100 against PNG? 
 

Forget the level of performance for a second, if you don’t think it’s a meaningful discussion and go back to your original point and answer the question-which players didn’t get chance to play themselves in to the tournament and who did you feel underperformed in a 60 point win on opening day to warrant being left out? Or then against France? Greece? PNG? You said it, so you must know. 

[WN83]

1 hour ago, Dunbar said:

 

I kind of land in the middle of these two.

The France and Greece games were not an issue, we were always going to win.

We had to play well 3 times in that comp (it would have been 4 if we had got to the final).

The first game we had to play well to top the group and get the tournament off to a flier.  We exceeded expectations and were very good (even if Samoa were poor).

Against PNG we easily saw off a potentially tricky opponent so we were good.

In the semi we didn't execute and just didn't play with the passion that the occasion warranted.

So...

Very good

Good

Poor

What's the average there!

 

The stadium felt flat for that semi and we just didn’t get going. It felt like the fans and even the players just thought it was a case of turning up after that opening win and we had one eye on the Aussies. I think Wane is tailor made for games against the Aussies and Kiwis, when we’d be the underdog but we were anything but going in to that game and we got burned. Sadly for Wane, there’s no guarantees he’ll ever coach England against the Aussies/Kiwis. 

[Dunbar]

5 minutes ago, WN83 said:

The stadium felt flat for that semi and we just didn’t get going. It felt like the fans and even the players just thought it was a case of turning up after that opening win and we had one eye on the Aussies. I think Wane is tailor made for games against the Aussies and Kiwis, when we’d be the underdog but we were anything but going in to that game and we got burned. Sadly for Wane, there’s no guarantees he’ll ever coach England against the Aussies/Kiwis. 

Look on the bright side.

I grew up watching Great Britain / England regularly losing to Australia and now we have gone almost 7 years without losing a game to them... an outstanding achievement. 

[WN83]

9 minutes ago, Dunbar said:

Look on the bright side.

I grew up watching Great Britain / England regularly losing to Australia and now we have gone almost 7 years without losing a game to them... an outstanding achievement. 

Very true

 

I’m almost certain we’d be 100% against them as well, had we played, so morally we’re World Champions.