Wayne Bennett is – determined on your opinion – either the greatest tactician to walk the face of the earth since Mr Christ laid out his vision to stop all violence, or an out-of-touch alias with less chance of leading England to glory than Jim Challinor (he may have won the World Cup for the UK in 1972, but he has been dead for 40 years).
First things first, the way the entire situation has been dealt with was apocalyptically horrible, but to have been expected. From the moment McNamara boarded the plane back to Sydney after guiding England to victory over the Kiwi reserves, it was obvious that the RFL decided for a change of policy.
Just this week, Trent Robinson, McNamara’s senior at Easts, came out and blasted the RFL for handling it badly. Shock horror! In other news, bad things happen in Syria. So the dismissal of McNamara was handled badly, and on balance, he just about deserved to stay, but the administrators decided for a change of course, and so it went. The way the previous coach was dealt with should have no bearing on opinion over the new coach.
Moving onto Mr Bennett, and despite calling him bad looking in the title – which, if you have ever had the misfortune of being in my company, you would know is a bit bloody rich coming from me – I think it’s the best decision that could’ve been made. The fact that he lives and works on the other side of the world was not much of an issue under McNamara’s reign, so shouldn’t be in this instance. Yes, McNamara knew about many of the English players beforehand, but that principle implies he would be limited to a player pool of no more than 30, which is ridiculous. Players progressing throughout the 2015 season that had never come to McNamara’s trail of thought were selected (circa Mr McGillvary), so the fact that our coach continues to reside in Australia is no big issue.
In fact, in my godawful opinion, it is an advantage. Many would like to have seen an English coach, such as Shaun Wane or Daryl Powell appointed and while they are both brilliant coaches, there would be problems. If the England role were to be part time and they were to carry on with their club coaching, there would be issues of bias. As England coach, Wane would be more willing to go with the players he knows best from working with at Wigan, rather than a different prospect from another club. Even worse, he might rest club players when they deserved to be selected to ensure that, in their mind at least, the club has an advantage for the next league season (which is officially tosh, but nonetheless a possibility).
To solve this, the only other option for an English coach would have to be to appoint a full-time coach, which seems rather unfair. At least with the Kangaroos, they have a mid-season game against New Zealand and the Prime Minister’s XIII against Papua New Guinea as well as an end-of-season format. In England, until the game’s administrators impose international restructuring – or I win the lottery and am able to buy influence to impose more international fixtures, about the same possibility really – the national side is restricted to three or four end-of-season games at the most. This makes it seemingly unfair to ask someone to dedicate their livelihood towards, and also unlikely to be accepted. Would you ever envisage Keiron Cunningham leaving Saints just to sit around for 11 months of the year?
So here, we have the best of both worlds. A neutral figure for all English selections that also happens to be the most tactically astute coach in the game that also manages to continue to save the RFL a bit of cash (by continuing with a part-time coach unlike the full-time roles of Australia and New Zealand).
See, it may be a northern game, but they’re embracing the Conservatives’ vision of austerity for Britain (sorry if that reference is lost on Australian readers).
Yes, he may have already taken criticism from monarchists by refusing to sing the national anthem, which is also an official anthem of his home country, but that’s understandable, what with the Australian constitutional debate and what not. This tolerance comes from the author that would jump off a cliff if the Duchess of Kent told him to because she fancied a laugh.
Until the international game changes to provide more international games, this is the best possible selection of a coach the RFL could’ve made.
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