Minutes after the final hooter, I think is a good time to reflect on a thoroughly disappointing tournament. Reaching the World Cup semi-final sounds like an achievement on paper, but in reality this disguises the fact that England only actually won one game out of four in the tournament.
Having scraped past Papua New Guinea, been humiliated by the Australians and surrendered to New Zealand last week, there was a degree of hope for redemption in this semi-final.
This was erased comprehensively by New Zealand this morning, by 32-22, again serving to disguise the fact that England were a distant second best. The Kiwis should have been 20 or more points to the good if it wasn't for a couple of lapses in concentration and a gift of points. Danny McGuire's two opportunist tries were off the back of the Kiwis dropping off in defence, and Martin Gleeson's late score was off an individual error. Truth is, we were not good enough.
So what has made us look so poor? In Superleague's comfort zone, and the last 4 or 5 World Club Challenges we've looked like world beaters.
England were technically inferior throughout the tournament, and failed to accomplish many of the fundamental points of the game. Handling errors, uncompleted sets of tackles, dozens of unforced errors, poorly judged and directed kicking and a high penalty count contributed massively. The two teams who have dominated Superleague for the last 5 years provided all the half backs and mainline kickers, but none of the could manage to turn the opposition around on enough occasions.
There have been questions around the choice of referees for this world cup, complaints from the pundits have been around the way in which the antipodean referees allow the teams to slow the speed of the play the ball. England have given away so many soft penalties in this world cup, including interference at the play the ball, yet the opposition seem to have been given far more time as they lie on and don't look to be interfering. Smart play?
The fact is that these are all symptoms, rather than the root of the problems.
I previously questioned whether the players who had recently battled through the Grand Final would be in shape and form to compete in this tournament. It does appear that a few of the St Helens members of the squad had their confidence destroyed by their defeat by Leeds in the Grand Final, and retreated into their shells. Leon Pryce barely managed a break in the games he played, despite Sky Sports Phil Clarke's continued vocal support. Paul Wellens, said by many to be the best full back in the world, looked barely a shadow of the Superleague lynchpin. The worst offender however, would have to be Superleague's top try scorer, Ade Gardner. A seasoned GB international, Gardner has made error after error in defence, and had no confidence going forward.
We can't blame the St Helens players alone, it is a team effort and that team is picked by the coach. Much as it pains me to say, the former Leeds coach Tony Smith will now be under intense media pressure. His selections in the week of the Semi Final have been strange to say the least. He picked a 19 man squad for the game, left out Gardner and Danny McGuire, weirdly after Gardner's comments that he was looking forward to playing. Then Smith announced a 17 man matchday squad which gave both Gardner and McGuire a start (the latter fully justified on Pryce's lack of form). There was no place in the 17 for Lee Smith, the winger who grabbed a hat-trick in the first game, and has not played since. Inexplicable decisions.
There must be some examination of the way in which Superleague works, both in terms of players, and interpretation of the rules. The comparison with the NRL is strong in terms of the best club sides, but the strength of the competition as a whole is far removed. For example, how many players from the worst teams in each competition made the 3 strongest squads? Isaac Luke, the new star of Kiwi rugby, plays for possibly the worst team in the NRL for the last 5 years. Contrast that with the European game. Similarly the style of play is different, and the NRL's running game from dummy half has been massively evident in the NZ and Australian sides, which our second markers have struggled to cope with.
We're never likely to win the World Cup if we cannot combat the dynamism of the opposition dummy halves and half backs. We also need to ensure our game has the same strength in depth as the NRL, which would mean trying to cut down on the number of foreign imports. The NRL has very few imports from the UK, and therefore breeds Australian and New Zealand qualified talent. The RFL need to redress this balance.
On a final positive note, our player of the tournament has to be the maverick Martin Gleeson, who gave his all and strained to break the line every time he had the ball. Interestingly Gleeson is due to move to the NRL in 2010. Closely followed by Rob Burrow who constantly punches above his weight. Outside these two, it's difficult to pick anyone who looked like they could break the line. Jamie Peacock, James Graham and Adrian Morley battled on as always, and made the hard yards, only for the players outside them to drop the ball, go too soon or pass forward.
Anyway, it's roll on Martin Johnson's England, hopefully we can redeem ourselves against the Wallabies at Twickenham this afternoon!
