THE TONY SMITH COLUMN: "In praise of Super League but need for change in terms of international future"

EXCLUSIVE By Tony Smith, England Head Coach

I recently returned from a three-week field trip to Australia where the build up to the World Cup is well under way and our England Academy Under-18s side had a mixed tour, with several issues arising, which I'll come to later. It was a chance to monitor the progress of our future at international level and also get a taste of what we can expect come October and November. Australia has some genuine concerns in the sport right now, but the World Cup is one of the really positive stories there.

I spent time in Townsville, where we start against Papua New Guinea on October 25; Newcastle, where we meet New Zealand a couple of weeks later; and Brisbane, where we'll be for the knockout stages. The weather in Townsville - far warmer than the British mid-summer, unless we're going to get a heatwave - was a reminder of the challenge it will present us, and one we'll cater for. The academy boys were based at the same hotel and trained at the same facility belonging to North Queensland Cowboys, as the full England squad will be using, which was good practice.

What particularly struck me was the enthusiasm and vibe for the World Cup in Townsville and our opening game there. It's a mad keen rugby league town and I did a press conference with PNG coach Adrian Lam that got a lot of people talking. Many people close to the game and others not so close to it were singing the praises of Super League over the NRL in terms of entertainment. I've been saying the same thing a while myself and it was nice to hear those sentiments coming back.

The World Cup organisers rang to thank me for the amount of work I've done in terms of promoting the tournament over there, so the story that they were reportedly unhappy that I'd not publicly named the provisional squad of 40 took me a little by surprise.

Forty names were submitted to the organisers simply in terms of meeting the regulations, but no regulation stipulated that we had to reveal those names. The 40 were put down at random and were genuine names, but I saw no need to announce them, because I'm looking at far more than 40 players in terms of potential selection for the final 24. I'm in no way restricting myself to a figure of 40. Why would anyone with the inevitable twists and turns over the final few weeks of the domestic seasons ?

I've seen players named in two World Cup squads and players named who won't even be playing until next February, because they've undergone knee reconstructions, which is all a bit of a farce. I certainly didn't want to add to any confusion by announcing a 40 so far out, for which I can't see any useful purpose. A few weeks before the tournament, perhaps, but not at this stage.

We'll have a fall out programme during the play-offs next month and those names will be made public, but I want to give players every chance up until the time the 24 who'll be boarding the plane are announced.

As for impending court cases involving a couple of players, all I'd say on those is that they are matters for the law. If and when there's anything for us to deal with, we will, but I'm not going to be judging people outside the courts of law, until they're dealt with in the appropriate manner.

After the England Academy team's 2-0 series loss to the Australia Schoolboys, part of the review will inevitably centre on what age groups are best to send there, and whatever teams we do send out must be the best we can select. There were some restrictions in selection, with a few players already playing at Super League level and some clubs opting for them not to go, which I can understand as well.

Those who went will have learned an awful lot, good and bad. With the exception of Huddersfield's Michael Lawrence and Bradford's Steve Crossley in the big first Test loss, the rest struggled. We missed 75 tackles and got punished for just about every one of those misses. The Aussies were good but we made them look sensational. We responded in the second match, only losing 17-10, but as I said to the players afterwards, we don't want to be responding after being bullied. In a game of rugby league you need to be the bully.

There are decisions for the future, one of which is how best to produce players in certain critical positions, ones in which we are not overly flush. Either we carry on the same process as the last ten years or we look at other ways. One, I believe, is specialised coaching, as opposed to just coaching teams. I also think we should be looking at mentoring and, for instance, getting the likes of Keith Senior passing on his ideas to young centres and Sean Long his knowledge to up and coming half backs.

A problem with full time rugby league, as opposed to a few years ago, is that the senior players don't see a lot of the juniors. Where I was born and raised, the senior players taught me as much as the coaches. If you seperate them, the youngsters miss out on great tuition by their peers. There's a lesson there, I believe.

I've some thoughts on Saturday week's Challenge Cup final between St Helens and Hull, which I'll be sharing here on The Times Rugby League Blog next week.

Tony Smith was talking to Chris Irvine. Pictures by Andrew Varley.

Comments

[Bob]

Whilst it is beyond question that Sean Long is a top player in domestic RL, he never really transferred that to the international arena (with one or two exceptions). Although I suppose he could pass on his wisdom of leaving his international teammates midway through a tour....

[Smitty]

Tony, excellent blog. When you talk about mentoring players and Keith Senior and Sean Long getting involved, who else do you think would be there to offer help. Is there a role for Gary Schofield ?

[Mike hunt]

Remember Numpty Dick Gt Britain doesn't exist any more accoriding to the RFL
Nice to see we are respected in Australia We do have a far more entertaining product used to watch NRL on sky, Can't have been that good as they dumped it as well.

[harry Sunderland]

eee alreet naw then Tone Dunt knaw bart Townsville but we got a townville ere in Cas Its weere poshn's live, they dunt do lobster but they has a nice chippy, am glad tha had a reet good trip, Its nice tu follow success in't tholympics, come on Gt Britain...........oo I meen Englund

see thee

[Numptyboy]

Great column and great insight Tony but are England going to win the World Cup ? That's the big one. I'm presuming that you've been inspired by GBs Olympics performance.Go for it England!

[LondonLouis]

Re the growing respect for SL in Australia: Andrew Johns has certainly gone on record in print saying that he generally finds SL games more entertaining than NRL ones. The challenge is for us to show that SL entertainment can produce a winning English team.