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This Sunday night’s clash between the Kangaroos and the touring English rugby league side marks almost two years since Australia ruthlessly demolished England in Melbourne during the 2008 World Cup.
Back then, hopes were high for an England squad dominated by in form St Helens and Leeds players. Ultimately, their tournament fell in a heap, with a sole narrow victory over PNG and rumours of damaging club-based rift amongst the playing group and staff.
Two years on, a quick glance at the tourists’ squad suggests that English hopes will be significantly lower this time around. The team that crumbled against the Aussies in 2008 featured some big names and big match experience.
The 2010 version is short on both, at least as far as the backline is concerned.
However, irrespective of how objectively bleak English prospects for Sunday night appear, over coming days the members of the English RL traveling press and fans back at home will no doubt feel that familiar surge of what-if optimism as the underdogs gear up for another clash against the perennially-strong Kangaroos.
While the on-field results typically don’t go their way, one thing is sure about the diehard English journos and fans who make the trip out to the southern hemisphere to support their lads: they are some of the nicest and most passionate rugby league people on the planet.
Two years ago in Melbourne, before the Australia v England world cup clash, I had the good fortune to share a few thoughts and a few drinks with a bunch of English columnists and commentators in town to cover the tournament – including the BBC’s legendary Ray French.
Before the game, the Pommy scribes and callers were utterly convinced that, despite the obvious gulf in backline class and the Kangaroos’ imposing record, their boys would give it a good shake.
And afterwards – despite the odd comment muttered into a half-downed pint about how things would never get any better – they were quick to credit the remarkable play from the Australians and have a bit of a laugh at their own expense.
This good-hearted optimism before the clash, and good humour afterwards despite the heart-breaking defeat, was a vivid insight into the underlying quality of one of the longest-suffering groups of RL fans around.
Compare the lack of grace demonstrated by some of their Australian counterparts. As recently as this week, the Daily Telegraph was deriding the English for having destroyed international rugby league.
Apart from that, the best they’ve been able to manage is the usual recycled non-story about the Roos being set to ‘square up’ with the Poms over a bit of niggle in a recent game (Wigan featherweight Sam Tomkins was really mean to Aussie forward Anthony Watmough in a game last year, dontcha know?).
Another thing that hasn’t changed much over the last decade are the on-field dynamics the England (or Great Britain) teams.
For the better part of the decade, they have fielded world class packs.
In the early 2000s, Great Britain teams were led by Andy Farrell and boasted true stars like Paul Schulthorpe and Keiron Cunningham. Mid-decade, they had world-class props Adrian Morley and Stuart Fielden at the peak of their powers.
Despite injuries to Morley and forward leader Jamie Peacock, England’s 2010 pack is spearheaded by the excellent Sam Burgess and Gareth Ellis, ably assisted by Graham, O’Loughlin and others. While these packs haven’t always performed, on paper the quality has pretty consistently been there.
The backs, however, are another matter.
In 2010 we are seeing the latest in a series of stop-gap scrumbase pairings, with this week’s press suggesting that England will shift young gun Tomkins to the back in favour of yet another untested halves combination in Luke Robinson and Kevin Brown. In years past, names such as Sinfield, Harris, Long, Deacon, Horne, Maguire, Burrow, Pryce and others have been shuffled around in high rotation, with unsurprisingly bleak results.
Out wide, experienced but limited old crusaders like Senior, Gleeson and Wellens have been replaced by a crop of young up-and-comers like Goulding, Shenton and Widdop – hardly names that are likely to send shudders through the Australian camp, yet.
While the new slate is encouraging, the reality is that although the English pack compares favorably to any other assembled in rugby league, the backline is a long way short of international standard.
Given the claims of soccer and other sports on England’s most talented young athletes, the dearth of truly world class halves and outside backs shouldn’t come as a surprise.
What is less excusable, though, is the ineptitude with which the playing talent which is available has been deployed over recent years. With the odd exception of games in which Kevin Sinfield’s boot has featured, England have been almost totally without a tactical or territorial kicking game of any note for years.
Time and time again they’ve been embarrsingly picked apart by Australian teams with standard NRL block-and-shift backline plays – with the 2008 world cup clash and the first half of 2009’s clash at Wigan prime examples.
As often as not, even their top line pack gets the fumbles and gives away soft penalties, unable to deal with the predictable Australian wrestling tactics in the ruck. Playing strength aside, these are all issues which could have – and should have – been fixed by now.
Hope, however, springs eternal. Despite similar limitations, England / Great Britain sides have scored some memorable victories against the Kangaroos in recent years, including a win away from home in Sydney in 2006. As recently as last year, they pushed the Aussies all the way in the Four Nations final, with the scoreline blowing out only in the last 10 minutes after both sides exchanged leads earlier in the match.
There have also been some crushing defeats, including nailbiting losses to an under strength Kangaroos side in 2003, an embarrassing flogging in the Tri Nations final of 2004 after dominating the tournament, and most recently the 2008 World Cup humiliation.
All up, over the past decade, England/Great Britain have won 3 of 17 clashes against the Kangaroos, for a wining ratio of around 17%. Pretty bleak reading, but arguably not as bleak as it could be.
The English rugby union side – with the largest rugby union player base in the world – has only a slightly better record against the dominant All Blacks over the last ten years, winning just 2 of its 10 clashes. Meanwhile, each of Scotland, Ireland and Wales have winless streaks against the All Blacks stretching back many decades.
The English RL side is going bad – but not that bad.
While victories against Australia have been relatively few and far between, the handful of memorable wins over the Kangaroos in recent times have come in the absence of many of the advantages Australian rugby league takes for granted, including the ready access to the country’s best sporting talent.
And while all indications are that Sunday’s match will see another entry in the losses column, you can be sure that most of the long-suffering, league-loving traveling contingent from England’s north will be enjoying a beer, a story and a laugh regardless.
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