The more I read about Bennett , the more he should not be coaching our players .
Let him stick with Souths , they are doing ok with him . Give Shaun Wane the England
job . If he is available of course .
This is fair.
A few more years and medals up their sleeves and a new challenge might beckon.
The reality is that we keep on churning out talent who want to play in the V, and as such if someone wants to try the NRL, as long as they apply themselves to the best of their ability whilst at Saints I bear them no Ill and wish them well because no man is bigger than the Club (although I am dreading the day Mr Perpetual Motion hangs up those boots......!)
I always say that the game is tough, the career is short...... players have to show loyalty but if someone offered to double your wages/length of contract/improve your lifestyle etc you’d be in the minority if you didn’t take it but moving to Australia isn’t for everyone.
Lots of good players have gone there and come back after a very short time..... without the comedy hisses and boos, think about Sam Tomkins, regardless of his Wigan links he was consistently one of the best players in SL but looked second rate over there....
For every Jammer there’s a Greenwood and Savelio, for every Sam Burgess there’s a Sam Tomkins and a Jordan Turner......
Can't stop the spirits when they need you.
This life is more than just a read through.
Let's be honest. Would anyone begrudge any of our lads trying to make it in the NRL. Treble your money,lifestyle etc. So long as it is done above board and appropriate compensation made we have to accept it.
Learned comment from The Don
Definitely not. If Tommo wants to go then good luck to him, he's given his all for Saints so far.
The issue here is Bennett abusing his position as England coach to approach our players to try and persuade them to move to his NRL team, and by him also publicly intimating that no matter how average a player you are if you move to the NRL he'll give you a place in his England team (RE Sutton)
Partially agree but to be honest the club have invested 10 years in him but in return we have had only one and a half seasons out of him, I would prefer him to give us at least 3 years or similar to Jammer 250 appearances. He's still quite young for a prop and if he gets better then the chances of him having an impact on the NRL will improve. It was similar with Greenwood he went a couple of seasons too early and his development stagnated because of it.
Good call to give Wane a crack at the England job. I was at a sportsmans dinner 2017 and he was the guest speaker, very witty and articulate. He said then that he would love to coach England. Regardless of what many perceive him to be, he is very passionate about the game and England in particular.
That’s a big call. Bar a World Cup Final loss I’m not sure what else he could have done really. You contrast the defence in the last two years to what it was in the first four nations he had and I’d say there have been significant improvements. Also haven’t seen us give as many soft penalties away either which was a real problem for England before that. You put Roby, Walmsley, Widdop, Burgess etc into the team that won the series against NZ and we’re in a strong position IMO. I also thought the attack was better in the Anfield test too which generally takes longer to improve.
Steve Prescott MBE (1973-2013)
V
I'm all for better defence,but it came at the cost of not being able to score in the world cup final,that team was picked on shipping the least points and never being able to win. Playing Bateman at left centre ( not a dig at Bateman as he is a good aggresive 2nd row ) was a negative as was the selction of Brown in the halves and Heightington in the squad. The test now is who he picks where for the Lions,will the nrl players get picked over others and is he going to be the usual dour defensive coach.
He was never going to be able to change England’s attack to that extent 12 months into the job, he doesn’t have long enough with them. Too many players with different skill levels playing differently at their clubs. I don’t think one player would have made that much of a difference, Australia are too good to be missing 1 on 1 tackles against the 3/4 we have over here. All he had before the World Cup was a mid season test against Samoa. I think he looked at the four nations 12 months prior to the World Cup and made the decision to fix discipline and defence first because that’s what cost us in that tournament. Some of them people were saying he should have picked in the World Cup were the ones who cost us in the previous tournament. Now he’s fixed the defence up and we aren’t conceding as many penalties, I think he’ll put more focus on the attack. I thought the attack was better at Anfield in November. If we struggle to score points at the end of the year, I’ll agree with you absolutely.
I just think people want to see him fail for whatever reason. When he picked Tomkins at 7 I kept reading how it was an awful decision, how it would cost us the series, the old “square pegs in round holes” line. Those people weren’t giving him credit when we won the first two tests with Tomkins there.
Shaun Wane has been mentioned in this thread, he’s as structured a coach as you’ll see. His teams have always focused on set plays and structured defence.
Steve Prescott MBE (1973-2013)
V
He has improved the defence, but I think some of his selections were too negative eg Bateman (who I really rate as a player) as a centre, Heighington. Also we played some pretty dour games under Bennett. Even under Mc Namara we were holding our own with the Kiwis. I believe we have improved as a team since those days, but I still feel he could have done more. It's a personal opinion but I feel we have more depth now than under the previous coach.
Bennett is boubd to be poaching British players for his own club , it is natural the clowns at the RFL should have seen that it was .
Bennett is just gutted it took Ricky Stuart to start picking up SL players for NRL.
Shane Richardson, General Manager of South Sydney, has denied interest in signing Luke Thompson. He does, however, rate Thompson in the top 3 British players in Super League. And the other 2 ? Wait for it - Daryl Clark and I jest not - Harry Newman of Leeds. And I used to think Aussies knew a bit about Rugby League!