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Schoey: England should axe the flops
Former Leeds stand-off Garry Schofield has urged England coach Tony Smith to ring the changes following an embarrassing 52-4 World Cup defeat by Australia in Melbourne.
Schofield is calling for Smith to drop Paul Wellens and give Lee Smith a run at full-back against New Zealand this weekend and bring in Danny McGuire at stand-off for Leon Pryce, who delivered another lacklustre display in England's second World Cup match.
"The problem Smith has is that the quality of the players he can bring in isn't any better than the ones he leaves out," said Schofield.
"I think Rob Purdham will come in for Kevin Sinfield: I have a lot of time for Kevin but he's certainly not international class, he's been found out now in the last two games.
"Lee Smith deserves to start at full-back in place of Paul Wellens to give England more penetration in attack. Wellens deserves to be dropped.
"The man-management skills of the coach are going to be put in sharp focus over the next seven days. The players need to get over what happened on Sunday and the best way to do that is away from the training field, be it by having a few beers, playing golf, going for a barbecue – anything but constant analysis of where it all went wrong.
"They will be bitterly disappointed themselves but they have to get back up there and realise that they can't play that badly again.
"I played for my country for 10 years and was on the end of many hidings by some great Aussie teams, and when you fall short you have to tell it like it is."
Schofield believes England can still salvage some pride from the wreckage of their 52-4 hiding by setting up a rematch with Australia in the final.
"The scoreline was a fair reflection of the match and I can't see there is any room for hope at all," said Schofield, who was capped 46 times by Great Britain.
"I don't get any satisfaction out of saying that because nobody wants us to win the World Cup more than I do, but not telling the truth isn't going to fool anyone.
"I want people to wake up.
"I want people to realise that our competition is not as good as some people are hyping it up to be and the players aren't as good as they believe they are.
"It's all right puffing your chest out when you've beaten the NRL champions out of season but on Sunday night, in a full international, is when you find out the truth.
"And what a painful truth it was."
The scoreline was England's biggest defeat in a World Cup match since a 49-6 reverse at the hands of New Zealand in 2000.
England scored just one try and conceded nine, including three each for Melbourne full-back Billy Slater and centre Greg Inglis. "People say this isn't a great Australian team but you look at that backline and it's as good as any I played against. The forwards aren't bad either," said Schofield.
"This is high quality Australian team and by the same token a very poor English side.
"At the end of the day it's all about pride now. Let's just see if we get to the final.
"The Kiwis will be a different kettle of fish to the team that lost 3-0 to Great Britain last year.
"They didn't want to play for Gary Kemble – I'm not saying that's the reason we beat them because we played some attractive football – but they are a lot more focused now and whichever team Tony Smith puts out has to rise to a massive challenge."
England flew out of Melbourne with their tails firmly between their legs – but hooker James Roby, who grabbed their only try against Australia, sounded a note of defiance.
"We're still in this World Cup," he said. "We've another game next week and we've got to be positive.
"No-one likes to concede 50 points. That is a bit of a kick in the guts. Personally, I don't think the scoreline reflects the battle we had in the middle.
"There was a couple of opportunities we should have taken advantage of but didn't. If we had scored a couple of tries, it would have been a different game.
"They are really clinical with their finishing and they scored a couple of breakaway tries."
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Saturday 11 February 2012
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