The England team are so succesful..... : Mon Mar 16, 2009 9:19 am  

.....we are going to have another one! http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2009/ma ... tony-smith

.....we are going to have another one! http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2009/ma ... tony-smith

: Mon Mar 16, 2009 10:29 am  

Good idea in my eyes, will probably be filled with players based on form that Tony Smith has no idea about how good they are because they're not the usual tried and tested crap.

They'd probably smash the actual England team if so.

: Mon Mar 16, 2009 10:41 am  

bring them on

: Mon Mar 16, 2009 11:23 am  

and they'll play really well and still get overlooked for the tried and failed old timers. If you can't tell by watching them play club games every weekend what will you lean from them playing a reserve England team every blue moon?

: Mon Mar 16, 2009 11:35 am  

JB Down Under wrote:

and they'll play really well and still get overlooked for the tried and failed old timers. If you can't tell by watching them play club games every weekend what will you lean from them playing a reserve England team every blue moon?

exactly.

it just gives Smith the excuse to not pick players like Westerman and Shenton for the main team. They will all play against teams like Russia and Wales - rack up cricket scores and everyone can say how wonderful they are, but it doesnt solve any of the problems at the highest level in either the short term or the long term.

: Mon Mar 16, 2009 11:37 am  

Looking at Frances performance they would be better playing them. Throw in PNG and Fiji and yuou've got a decent second tier quad nations! TBH I'd probably prefer watching proud hungry youngsters in the England B team play a fired up PNG!

: Mon Mar 16, 2009 11:38 am  

if they are considered good enough for a '2nd' team who is to say they arent gonna be better than the current crop of 'losers' we insisnt on playing year in year out ?

i would just shove them in the full internationals - if they lose then so what they've not done any worse than the 'big superstars' and can only gain from the experiences

: Mon Mar 16, 2009 11:55 am  

Wasn't this done last year against Wales at Keepmoat?
Second stringers with a few regulars.

: Mon Mar 16, 2009 12:23 pm  

Indeed, why bother, play them instead of the usual wasters, at least we might see some effort and pride.

: Mon Mar 16, 2009 12:36 pm  

GIANT DAZ wrote:

if they are considered good enough for a '2nd' team who is to say they arent gonna be better than the current crop of 'losers' we insisnt on playing year in year out ?

i would just shove them in the full internationals - if they lose then so what they've not done any worse than the 'big superstars' and can only gain from the experiences

The reason is that there is a large gulf between Superleague and International competition. Paul Sykes is a great example of a player that looks pretty good in Superleague but was hopeless in the World Cup.

Engalnd A were a good team and a lot of the players that played for England A are not in the Engalnd first team. Bringing back this team under a different name is a good idea.

Regardless if you like it or not the players in the World Cup were are best we had at the time and a World Cup is not a time to experiment. Remember 12 months earlier England thrashed our new world champs 3-0 in a test series.