Set of Six: Moment of truth for England and Steve McNamara

1) Last chance saloon

So, this is it. England must beat New Zealand in Dunedin this weekend by at least 10 points, or another southern hemisphere odyssey will end in failure – and so too, you’d have thought, will Steve McNamara’s spell in charge of the national team.

His record since succeeding Tony Smith in 2010 makes pretty grim reading, vindicating those who opposed his appointment from the start as an easy, cheap option for the Rugby Football League. In seven games against Australia and New Zealand, his England team have managed a single victory, helped by a feeble Kiwi effort in Hull in 2012 – in addition to being humiliated by Italy in the warm-up to last year’s World Cup.

McNamara clearly knows his stuff technically and seems to have the respect and loyalty of his players, as well as other coaches. But there is now a fair body of evidence, augmented most recently in the latest narrow defeat against Australia in Melbourne at the weekend, that he, or at least his teams, lack that extra something needed to win tight Test matches.

Maybe it is his own lack of big-match experience in club rugby, either as a player or a coach. Maybe he just has not got the necessary edge, or mongrel, necessary to succeed in such a ruthless environment. The closest he came was when flouncing out of a press conference before England’s World Cup opener in Cardiff. But as that followed the Italy debacle, it just came across as the pathetic floundering of a man out of his depth.

The verdict on McNamara as an international coach could yet be transformed over the next couple of weeks, if England achieve the necessary winning margin against the Kiwis to secure a place in the Wellington final against an eminently beatable Australia team. He may not believe it, but even those of us wondering aloud about his ability are willing him to succeed.

It is probably too late for him to have much of an impact now, anyway, other than in selection – which has never been a strong point, illustrated most clearly by his reluctance to pick Gareth Widdop at stand-off in last year’s World Cup until the semi-final. From this distance, the perseverance with Joel Tomkins in the second row ahead of Elliott Whitehead, who had such a fine season with the Catalans, and the continued absence of Zak Hardaker from the backline, seems equally strange, and stubborn – what was the point in naming Whitehead and Hardaker in the squad if they are not trusted to play in the matches?

But now it is down to the players he has picked to salvage McNamara’s reputation.

2) Streetwise Smith, wincing Poms

There will be no bleating here about the decision of the video referee Bernard Sutton to deny Ryan Hall what would have been a match-equalising try in the last minute in Melbourne. As Australia’s coach, Tim Sheens, noted, not even Hall thought he had scored until he saw the replays, and it is about time the game’s lawmakers made it clear that players have to exert proper downward pressure on the ball to be awarded a try, which should remain the precious currency of the game and not to be debased by benefit-of-the-doubt decisions.

England had a far stronger case in complaining about the handling of the game by Sutton’s brother Gerard, and specifically his indulgence of the Kangaroos in late tackles, mostly on James Graham, and of flopping at the play-the-ball. The decision-makers of the Rugby League International Federation and their appointments committee may be too witless to see it, but that is where Australia benefited from having one of their own in charge of the match – in subtle interpretations, and in their experience of how far they could push the official. In the case of Cameron Smith, Australia’s captain, that pretty much meant as much as he liked, rather like a cricket captain who has to be absolutely plumb to be adjudged lbw.

Fair play to Smith, whose streetwise performance in ensuring the Kangaroos would not make unwanted and humiliating history under his captaincy reminded me of Keiron Cunningham’s attitude to maintaining the dominance of his St Helens team over Warrington – “Not on my watch,” he would say when asked when the Wolves would finally end their Knowsley Road hoodoo.

But all those involved in the decision to dispense with neutral referees in this tournament should be brought up by the RLIF for bringing the game into disrepute.

3) More, please

That has all been a bit negative, for a tournament which has been another celebration of the refreshing effects of international rugby league. It looked a decent occasion in Melbourne on Sunday, but on balance I would rather have been in Whangerei to see the Samoans give the Kiwis such a fright.

Wollongong and Dunedin are another interesting pair of contrasting venues this weekend – one an established league hotbed, the other pretty much virgin territory. Sir Peter Leitch, aka the Mad Butcher, has been doing his bit to drum up interest at the bottom of New Zealand’s South Island, a place I have always wanted to visit after watching the film Scarfies about the Otago city’s student population – when sitting in the first-class section of a trans-Tasman plane with Kris Radlinski, funnily enough and at risk of name-dropping, after the pair of us had been upgraded, to the irritation of our colleagues or team-mates. It has the additional appeal of a breeding colony of Royal Albatrosses inside the city limits, which is not something you can say about Featherstone.

This time last year international league was sprinkling its magic around the north of England and other assorted venues from Bristol to Avignon, and the World Cup’s media manager Martin Johnston is currently reliving a few memories in a daily blog.

The development and increased competitiveness of teams such as Samoa and Scotland, whose European Cup success means they are now due to play in the next Four Nations in the northern hemisphere in 2016, offers such a huge opportunity for rugby league. The television deals concluded for Super League with Sky and with a few extra zeros by the National Rugby League with Channel Nine and Fox make it an unprecedented window of opportunity, as the clubs in each hemisphere should now be able to think about the bigger picture. Can they seize the chance? The most significant single decision taken in the last year by the Super League clubs, to increase rather than reduce the number of club matches played next season under the new structure, suggests probably not.

4) Far and wide

It is time for those clubs to think seriously and proactively about how they can do more to help the pioneers who continue to defy the odds and make admirable progress in taking the code to new areas.

Here’s a sample of the press releases I’ve received in the last week or so. A new scheme for elite players in the Netherlands. A second tier of competition in Jamaica. The eighth anniversary of the Ukraine Rugby League, which they marked by moving to new offices. Victory for Lokomotiv Moscow over Veraya in the Russian Grand Final. Another triumph for train lovers in the Czech Republic, where Lokomotiva Beroun, from the Central Bohemian District, beat the Rabbitohs of Chrudim in the east.

Wouldn’t it be great to go on a tour some day, and get a hands-on feel for what’s happening in these places, and what more could be done to help? In the meantime, imagine how much they’d all benefit from the odd visit by a Super League or Championship player, or placing a couple of their hopefuls for a month’s coaching in England or France. In the absence of an effective International Federation, shouldn’t Super League (and the NRL in the southern hemisphere) have someone central co-ordinating that?

5) Life goes on

It has been nearly four weeks since the Super League Grand Final. Ben Flower is almost a sixth of the way through his suspension. Some clubs are already back in pre-season training. Wes Naiqama has arrived in London. Ryan Bailey and Ian Kirke have left Leeds, for Hull KR and Wakefield respectively. The latest whisper is that Lee Mossop may be on his way back from Parramatta to replace one of them in the Rhinos pack.

Rugby league may be casually dismissed by some, and ignored by plenty of others, but it keeps battling on, and occasionally even thriving. Only three months now until the start of next season – Widnes v Wigan on a chilly Thursday night in Cheshire, or a warmer Thursday night in the pub watching Sky. Don’t know about you, but I can hardly wait. In the meantime, what time’s the kick-off in Wollongong?

6) Gone fishing

And what is it that makes rugby league such a bloody great sport? So many things, obviously, but how about this from the Hull FC coach, Lee Radford, explaining his decision to send the members of his under-19 squad out to work in “normal”, non-rugby jobs when they are not training?

“I feel the players need to know how hard people in this city work to afford to come and watch the club play every week,” Radford told the Hull Daily Mail. “Being in and around the supporters and working alongside them, we hope it will give the young players that kind of insight into how hard our fans work. It’s about creating an understanding because, going forward, we want the players to know what it means not just to play for the club, but what the club means to the fans they are representing.”

And yes, some of them will even work in a fish factory.