As one England rugby coach announced that he was stepping down on Wednesday another, Steve McNamara, admitted that he is wrestling with one of the toughest selection decisions of his career ahead of
ugg boots outletnfl jerseys cheap Saturday's Four Nations final against Australia.
Gareth Ellis, the formidable Sydney-based Yorkshireman who missed last Saturday's 28-6 win against New Zealand after suffering a recurrence of his intermittent back problems in the previous weekend's defeat by Australia at Wembley, seems certain to return to the pack at Elland Road.
"I've had an injection in it, and it feels fine," Ellis said after completing training at the team's Loughborough base. "To be honest, I wish I'd had one before."
That is a major boost to England's hopes of ending almost 40 years of international inferiority to the Kangaroos. But it has left the coach with a major headache.
"It is an extremely tough choice," said McNamara, who had just turned one when Great Britain were crowned world champions after drawing with Australia in the final of the 1972 World Cup in Lyon. "But it's pretty much unheard of for a coach to have every player in a 24-man squad available at this stage, right at the end of such a long season. I've got to be happy that I've been put in that situation this time around."
Garreth Carvell replaced Ellis against New Zealand in the first change McNamara had made in four fixtures this autumn. The Warrington prop made a mostly positive impact from the interchange bench, and the St Helens forward Jon Wilkin excelled following his promotion to Ellis's position in the starting 13.
McNamara may be tempted to retain Wilkin and Ben Westwood in his starting pack, with Ellis returning in place of Chris Heighington, his Wests Tigers team-mate who has been a Four Nations ever-present at loose forward but has been carrying a calf injury. However, there will be few clues about the final selection in the squad of up to 21 that England are expected to name on Thursday.
England's low-profile league coach conceded that it will be the biggest game of his career so far, and expressed his sympathy for his union counterpart, Martin Johnson, with whom he has exchanged ideas on
传世私服Pittsburgh Steelers Jerseys several occasions since being promoted to succeed Tony Smith after the defeat by Australia in the 2009 Four Nations final.
In contrast to Johnson, McNamara was looking ahead to a future in coaching from the earliest days of a playing career with Hull and Bradford in which he won a handful of international caps. His father, Ted, was heavily involved in coach education in Hull rugby league circles, and McNamara cut his teeth with the Skirlaugh amateur club before he had turned 30.
"With my dad's background and also being signed for Hull by Brian Smith, I was thinking about coaching pretty much right from the start," he said. Smith, one of the most experienced coaches in Australian rugby league who is now in charge of the Sydney Roosters, had travelled to a building site in the city where a teenage McNamara was working as a labourer to offer him a first professional deal.
The two remained in close contact after Smith had gone home to coach St George, and he memorably described McNamara, a goalkicking loose forward in the mould of Kevin Sinfield, as "the fruit on the sideboard" when he signed him again for Bradford after returning for a second British stint in 1996. McNamara accelerated his coaching education under Smith's younger brother, Tony, first at Huddersfield and then as part of the England set-up that endured humiliation in the 2008 World Cup before regaining credibility with their run to the Four Nations final two years ago.
That game ended in a deflating 46-16 defeat, with England blown away by four late Kangaroo tries after competing strongly for three-quarters of the game. McNamara, whose contract runs until the next World Cup in 2013, is convinced that his squad is capable of going the distance.
cheap nfl jerseysCheap NBA JerseysNHL Jerseys
