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Bosses must sort French farce
THERE are some decisions that just defy logic.
One of those things was the French appointing Bobbie Goulding as their coach last winter.
Another was choosing to play a Test match in Paris, the apathetic graveyard of the long dead but scarcely mourned Super League franchise.
Both those factors contributed significantly to what was, to be brutally frank, an embarrassing spectacle as England ran riot in the French capital last weekend.
Goulding, a man whose experience of professional coaching extends no further than his tub-thumping stints at Rochdale, turned out a team that looked singularly badly prepared for a game of that standard.
Sure, France's entraineur could point to the absence of a handful of Catalans Dragons players who missed the game through injury.
Then again, England's Tony Smith also left a clutch of his star names at home, presumably in a vain attempt to make a match of it.
Then there was the venue.
Even the presence of World Cup winning rugby union coach turned sports' minister Bernard Laporte could not disguise a half empty ground which contributed significantly to what, on television at least, appeared to be a non-event.
How much better would things have looked if the game had been played down in Perpignan in front of a full house?
No one in their right mind would argue against the benefits of developing France as an international force.
But the truth is that there were no winners last weekend.
It is difficult to imagine the event turned a profit, Smith and England got a walkover rather than any real test of their abilities and Monsieur Bobbie's boys took another hammering to their already fragile morale.
Next year, the only way forward for this fixture is to resurrect some kind of England A side, composed of players on the fringes of the international scene, and to play the game somewhere south of the Gallic equivalent of Watford Gap.
That way, we might get something to enthuse about rather than criticise.
Smith obviously feels that way and has resumed his demands for a mid-season clash with some kind of select side made up of the pick of Super League's legion of overseas players.
Given that high quality preparation is the basic ingredient for success in any sport, the Australian must currently despair of competing with the Kiwis and the Kangaroos this autumn.
THERE are some phrases that I thought I would never utter.
And this is one of them: I'm developing a sneaking admiration for Harlequins.
Well, not so much the London club per se, but more the attitude of their coach Brian McDermott.
The occasionally truculent former Bradford front rower may still have a squad packed with overseas signings.
But he is also one of the few - perhaps the only - Super League coach prepared to give young, untried English talent a chance.
And it is nice to see that approach being rewarded with good results, the latest of which came at Hull KR last weekend.
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Saturday 11 February 2012
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