Firstly, I went into a little bit of an exam induced hibernation, so to anyone who missed my blog (yeah right ….) then I apologise. I have been keeping my beady eyes on the goings on of the league, the Willie Mason saga and sponsorship and possible club changes to Super league.
Back into the swing of things though with the England vs The Exiles clash at Headingley. First moan to get out of the way, Leeds city council, why are you resurfacing the main road back to the motorway from the stadium the night of the game? You wasted a few hours of my life, and im sure everyone else’s who was heading back to the M62.
Pre-game, I thought it would be a really good contest. Although I didn’t agree with some selections on the England side, I thought we would put in a decent showing and hopefully come away with a win. There was a decent sized turnout for the first ever fixture but the atmosphere was hardly electric. In the terraces it was difficult to gauge who the fans actually wanted to win, with half supporting England and the other half supporting whoever was getting stuck in to Sam Tomkins (who saved two tries with great tackles)
I, of corse was supporting England, and I was disappointed with the performance. I don’t know what it is about the Australians, but they slide there defence so much quicker than English players. If we had the ball yesterday and switched the play, guaranteed they would have the numbers already across and almost man-on-man. If they switched the play, we would be all over the shop, with slow sliding and some poor positional play, especially when playing down our left side.
A number of times Shenton and Sinfield got shown up on that side. Sinfield is not an international number 6. Granted he has experience, but he has no pace, didn’t organise very well, passing was average and his kicking only improved in the last 15-20 minutes. Michael Shenton also didn’t have the best of games, slipping off a few tackles, and giving away easy yards, which didn’t help as the 2 of them were defending out left channel. Myler isn’t International standard just yet either. He didn’t get involved enough and I don’t think we should waste a pivot position on a support player (that coming from a Warrington fan) and I think a couple of changes could or should have been made.
Both teams defended well overall, but the exiles always looking a little more dangerous to me. There were a couple of good performances though, with Luke Robinson having a great game, as well as Benny Westwood throwing in some huge shots, but certainly more players should have come across better.
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| Fitzgibbon and Buderus |
In my opinion, we are never going to move forward with Steve McNamara as coach. International management is more about motivation than anything else, and what motivates a team more than the title of ‘worst Bradford losing streak in 20 years?’ You need to know that the best is going to come out of the players and they are going to put in a performance, and too many didn’t.
Regardless of fan interest, which is certainly geared more to club rugby than country, Its now four loses out of five for England under McNamara and im keeping my fingers crossed we will fair better next year without him as head coach.
