McNamara: We don't fear Aussies

Steve McNamara
12 April 2012

England coach Steve McNamara will send his players up a 70-foot vertical drop on Tuesday but insists his young guns will go into this weekend's Four Nations clash with Australia without fear.

Scaling the highest indoor climbing wall in the southern hemisphere is an example of the innovative McNamara's team-bonding ideas that has seen his players go yachting and white-water rafting, but it might well also illustrate the size of their task against the Kangaroos at the AAMI Stadium on Sunday.

He said: "There are probably a number of factors. We need to be able to apply that pressure and soak it up at the same time and it's been a while since we've done that against Australia. We've managed to do it in one-off Tests but trying to do it twice in a series has been an issue for us. This group of players is very young and with that is some slight inexperience, but there is no fear whatsoever."

He added: "There is no previous history for a lot of these people and, with Gareth Ellis, Sam Burgess and Brian Smith in particular being on our staff we get a real insight into how these teams operate.

"We're trying to address those issues in a number of areas and hopefully you will see that happen this week."

Wigan prop forward Stuart Fielden is the only player who featured in Great Britain's record 64-10 mauling in Sydney in the one-off Test of 2002, while there are only just three survivors from England's embarrassing 52-4 World Cup rout in Melbourne two years ago.

Gareth Ellis, James Roby and new captain James Graham will have vivid memories of that nine-try hammering at the Telstra Stadium but McNamara and his predecessor Tony Smith have made full use of a new broom since then.

However, a 26-16 defeat 12 months ago in Wigan in their most recent meeting with Australia - a match in which they found themselves trailing 26-0 at half-time - is just another example of an inability to play for the full 80 minutes and McNamara admits the tourists still have to find some answers.

McNamara is likely to bring in another new face against Australia, with Tony Clubb, whose only previous international experience came in a Tri Nations warm-up game against Wales two years ago, or Leroy Cudjoe vying to replace injured centre Michael Shenton.

Among the other options being considered by the England coaching staff is a reshuffle of the back division, with Sam Tomkins going to full-back, Gareth Widdop to centre and Luke Robinson starting at scrum-half.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in