Wigg'n wrote:Do you mean 2008 World Cup? Or 2009 Four Nations?
We were really poor in 2008 but Tony Smith just couldn't get the team to work. Some very strong players mainly from Leeds and Saints but they just didn't gel. Paul Sykes got a game too so not the best quality
In 2009 we went quite close, I think 6 points in it with 15 mins left but then Australia scored 4 tries. With an Aussie ref and some immortal players in their absolute prime - Slater, Inglis, Hayne, Lockyer, Thurston, Smith, Civoniceva, Gallen - it would've taken an incredible team to beat them and we still had players like Peter Fox, Chris Bridge, Eorl Crabtree in there. I don't think it was just because we couldn't wrestle.
Yes, 2008.
I remember one of the main excuses banded about at the time of England's world cup performance was the ruck in SL was too quick and there was too much 'scooting' which meant they struggled to create anything when they came up against the slower rucks generated by Aus/NZ (although the standard of backs we had available at the time was pretty awful). We saw an almost immediate shift in what refs would all defenses to get away with at the play the ball, and it's been getting messier ever since.
