BY BRIAN NOBLE
I’D be lying if I said I wasn’t disappointed with how England have gone overall in the Ashes series, wonderful though it was to see the greatest international rivalry back.
Wembley was a damp squib and the hosts seemed to lack a bit of fire after all the initial big build up.
They addressed that in the Second Test and were a bit of the curate’s egg in the third, good in parts, but for me the damage was down in game one against a side that made 15 errors, which I’ve never known the Aussie do; they were there for the taking.
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The most frustrating thing will be that, in all of the post-series analysis, nothing much has changed over the last 30 or 40 years to give us the best chance of competing.
We started at Everton with much more of the physicality that was lacking in the capital and shook the Kangaroos up for a while, and in the Third we ran out of steam after knocking on the door for 20-odd minutes but failing to get over the line.
You don’t get many chances against the Aussies, and I can count, maybe, a dozen over the three games but we only finished two of them.
The support has been fantastic in terms of numbers but England’s performances overall a little flat, no small way down to the length of our competition – hey, some clubs are already back in pre-season training and this year has only just finished.
We all know the steps that have to be taken structurally and to give our guys, who couldn’t be faulted for effort, a level playing field – all the coaches of the national side over that time, including me, have said the same things.
We’ve all had the best intentions and, by keeping his squad together principally in Wigan and at the Worsley Marriott hotel, Shaun may well have wanted to create a siege mentality and it’s hard to criticize because he’s in the maelstrom of it.
He knows he hasn’t got the same depth of talent to call on so he has to get the best out of what he has and there has to be a measured response to the series loss, yet the most significant answers are there however unpalatable they are to Super League.
We have to play our best young players in the NRL – just look at how New Zealand have kicked on again and the further rise of the Pacific Nations because of their exposure in that comp – to give Shaun the level of intensity he needs for them.
Or we find that in our domestic competition. Hull KR are the benchmark this season and Wigan still hot on their heels after what they did in 2024 but even they would admit they don’t have to find their top form every single week.
They can’t expect the same battle turning up at now club number fourteen as they’ll get at the one sitting in second.
We talk about player welfare and concussion protocols, how about taking a few games out the schedule?
Just imagine if you had a four-month off-season to prepare rather than gearing up for a testimonial in mid-January, do that and everything goes up. We are so overburdened, it’s crazy.
That infrequent top level testing and a lack of an Origin type equivalent to bridge the gap to international rugby means we can’t match the top nation in a three-match series; we can go for moments and periods but playing for 60 minutes is no good against this mob.
We got closest in 2003, only just losing all the games in the closing stages in part thanks to a bloke called Lockyer, but we had significant preparation pathways in place then under David Waite.
We probably need to have a look at more young players too like when I made my debut in the last game of the Invincibles tour in 1982, also in the last Test at Headingley.
They reinvented the game but when we went over there two years later, when I was fortunate enough to be named skipper, with a lot of fresh blood in the team we narrowed the gap, just ran out players in New Zealand, and thrashed Papua New Guinea 1-0.
That tour provided us with players that were the backbone of the national side for a long time after who went on to become household names.
To bring some reality back to these defeats, there are more youngsters playing in the Penrith district than there are in the whole of the UK, alongside the riches available to the NRL – they’re the sobering facts with which to temper our despair.
We didn’t have a warm up Test, there’s nothing scheduled for mid-season; no just go out and win a World Cup next year, we have to get real.
The clubs have the power and need to look after their assets but there has to be some measure of guidance from the ‘leadership’ of the game.
If they want an international element that is competitive, they have to invest in it. And the Aussies want us to beat them to properly reignite the revered rivalry.
State of the game
NO one wants the game here to look like it does at the moment, it’s just causing arguments and fallouts about who is doing the right thing for the sport.
All of the tough decisions must be made by people who understand that someone is going to be upset somewhere in order to get better overall.
I would love to have been a fly on the wall at the high-level meetings Peter V’landys and Andrew Abdo had with our top brass while they was over here.
Publicly all he is saying is that governance has to change to the kind of independent commission that has produced all the riches over in the Antipodes. I’m with him on that totally, we have to grasp that nettle.
He was forthright in saying that’s the priority if the NRL are to invest and I hope, as a fan, that they genuinely get involved.
I don’t know what that looks like and I’m not sure if anyone genuinely does at this stage, but it would be such a step in the right direction.
We’re at one of those frequent crossroads where we’ve either got to turn left and over a cliff or right and onto the super highway.
We need to take a chance, what have got to lose, or we’ll miss out there has never been as much competition – not just sporting – for the eyeballs.
The one other thing I’d pick up on that V’landys said was that we’ve got the product but we just don’t do the right thing by it, and that’s why tough decisions have to be made.
In 1895, the northern clubs decided that they wanted to take a measure of control and make some of their own decisions, we need a new ‘coalition of the willing’ because we are now at that moment again; brave new world or squealing towards oblivion.
Bradford back, but questions remain
SO we’ve gone to 14 teams in Betfred Super League. The downside of that is that we’re not addressing the intensity issue.
The other side, for me personally, is that Bradford are in and in 10th place through grading so deserve it, which takes the conspiracy theories away.
We haven’t got long to get prepared; we’ve made some important signings and retentions but none of the new clubs have sufficient planning time.
The player scarcity is there to see which tends to put values up and there is an element of not knowing what happens next year, added uncertainty about whether we have got time to properly build or if promotion and relegation in some form will be brought back – whoop di do because then some of the infrastructure investment made could be wasted.
I’ve always thought that the IMG gradings were a worthwhile attempt to improve standards across the board.
I was involved in going back to the Bulls when they were first proposed and it is still valid; clubs are having to work on every level to prove that they are worthy of being in Super League – and you have to keep providing those elements or you get the points accrued taken away from you.
What about Wales?
I WAS speaking to ‘Basil’ Millward the other day on the phone about the quality of the game here.
He’s joining Mal Meninga at Perth to help out with their development systems having done that at St George, and we both agreed that his St Helens team and the Bradford one that was going around at the time would probably win Super League now with their eyes closed.
That’s not either of us being a braggard, it’s a reflection on the quality of imports that were coming over then and the players from rugby union, genuine headline makers.
Because of that, the game was box office and kids just wanted to play, to test themselves having seen the best close up.
We have to access better athletes and be sourcing where they come from including other sports. There were two London-produced players in England’s 17 if anyone needs more evidence.
How are we appealing to Welsh kids in their current rugby union disarray? We need to open our doors again because we’re an attractive proposition, and that’s also why IMG are important because they understand social media and getting engagement from the younger generation.
There has to be energy around what we’re doing.