Safely arrived in our swanky hotel in Cardiff City centre (well the Premier Inn at J36 of the M4).
It seems a lifetime ago that we set off from Wakey to pick the eldest up from college and headed off on our travels. A Starbucks stop, followed a few miles later by a toilet stop, plenty of traffic, but surprisingly only one league car (Rhinos) and a mini bus (town of origin, unknown).
Hour after hour of Tarmac, I remember now why I hate motorway driving so much. Thank heavens, most of the lengthy journeys in this World Cup will be by public transport. But five and a bit hours later, we’re here.
Half hourly updates on 5live informed me that Steve Mac walked out of the press conference today, after repeated questions about why James Graham was left out. The press are loving it of course. Danny Lockwood even thinks he should resign on the back of it, and Martyn Sadler is frothing at the mouth about a lack of media training. Calm down chaps, you’ll do yourself an injury. Many journalists seem to think they are God’s gift, and that the rest of the world should fawn all over them and comply with their every demand. They’re just blokes doing a job, same as Steve Mac is.
If he’s getting fed up fending off stupid questions, then hey ho, fine. We’re constantly told by the rugby league journalists that they aren’t paid cheerleaders for the sport, but they seem to think that Steve Mac should do whatever they want, to make their lives easier. Don’t quite stack up to me.
I’d have liked the England camp to come out right from the off and say that Hock was sacked for going on the sauce and whatever else he did, and that Graham, McIlorum and whoever else was dropped for being on the pop with him. However, I don’t know how the players would have reacted to that. Steve Mac has to make that call. What counts is trying to get England to win the World Cup, not to give the journos a nice easy run through the next five weeks.
People are complex, react differently, and I know from people I’ve managed over the years, that you’ve got to tailor your feedback to them on areas of improvement in different ways. Then you get people like Hock, where it doesn’t really matter what you do, it’s a lost cause. Maybe James Graham is feeling pretty miffed at himself, and will rip into Fiji and the rest for the next few weeks to make up for his stupidity. Maybe raking over those coals now, would have hacked him off even further?
We’re assuming that there will be 17 players in the England squad who have not broken camp rules, and who should be chomping at the bit to put one over the Aussies. This is a six game tournament, and all that matters is that we win the last game.
So far it is certain players, who have let the coach down. They had a poor attitude against Italy and then a bunch went on the drink on Saturday. There will be 17 players out there tomorrow for England, and it’s down to them to take their opportunity. For many of those players, this will be their only opportunity to become World Champions. If they can’t focus and bring out their best performance with that incentive, then they really don’t deserve to be out there anyway.
The Rugby League World Cup 