OK, now the dust has settled i thought it would be interesting to hear on peoples thoughts on how good of a job McNamara did overall with the England and whether you would keep him.

Personally i think poor. 3 years he has had. He's has all the resources and been given a chance to do things his way. He's also had the best set of players for a number of years. Yet has achieved very little. 1 win in 7 against NZ & OZ is a terrible record! Add to that embarrassing losses to the exiles, Italy and scrappy victories over Fiji & France. Yet one excellent performance against NZ is enough to convince some people he is a good enough coach? We were playing in front of 65+ at wembley, in a semi final of a home WC against the world champion. I think most coaches could have got us motivated for that. Yet when all said and done we still lost. In the most brutal game i've ever seen, Mcnamara player effectively 15 players. One player played 10 minutes and the 17th man didn't get on at all. Great tactics!

Then there is the selection farce. For two years Mcnamara went with Chase/Sinfield. It was obvious to most it was never going to work. But Mcnamara stuck at it almost ignorantly. Our best half back who won every individual award going this year went on to play for Scotland as it became obvious to every person involved in the sport Mcnamara wasn't going to pick him. He then realises on the ever of the Semi final that it's not going to work and changes the half back combination to a completely new one. What if Mcnamara had have been left stubborn/ignorant and tried Sinfield/Widdop more before (IE warm up games/ or the group games against the minnows) maybe they would have worked that extra 1%. Then there are the laughable inclusions of Ben Cockayne and the original non inclusion of Brett Ferres who turned out to be one of our best performers. Or the fact he chose Mossop & T Burgess, quickly realised neither were good enough and didn't select either again. All this time Crabtree who was one of the best props this season, was sitting in the studios!

Just don't see why people think he's the man for the job on one decent performance. Comparing it to 08 is ludicrous. That squad contained Calderwood, lee Smith, Wellens, Gardner and Senior in out back line.

All the above is my opinion of course, wondered what others opinions are.

I'd say poor at the most. we never really looked like beating Australia. yes we did beat new Zealand in a couple of games over here but that was against a poor NZ team IMO. as you said the persistence of having a sinfield and chase half back combination was just stupid and also the forwards leaving out crabtree when he had a great year. leaving out graham against Australia in the first game and putting hock in the squad who IMO had not deserved to be there and ultimately letting him down and getting kicked out due to bad behaviour. And that's really all in just one tournament.

sadly (for him) the difference between 'poor' and 'very good' all rested on that semi-final....but it has to be poor for me! We were the second best team in the RLWC and yet we didn't make the final.

I personally wouldn't be devastated if he is still coach for the 4 nations as i think England have improved technically leaps and bounds but it would be last chance saloon certainly!

Average bordering on poor for me.

We are actually at the stage now where I am quite positive about the future of England/GB because of the quality youngsters breaking through, but that's nothing to do with him. By and large he stuck with the safe options which just didn't work. He waited far too long to bring in Widdop, he alienated Danny Brough and dealt with the media very poorly.

ATEOTD we are a better team than NZ, especially on home soil, and we blew it. Based on that alone he can't be judged to be a success.

When you don't have the players for the key positions and use only make do and mend tactic then anyone who expected anything else was seriously deluded.
McNamara did the best he could with the talent at his disposal.
One day, and it isn't going to happen soon , by the amount of overseas crocks being signed, the clubs may realise there is a problem but then my club, my club, my club, my club, is all that you get along with bigger blinkers.

It's got nothing to so with me wanting players from my club. There's no one from my club who deserved to be picked (Crooks and Lineham will be internationals but not yet). Decisions like picking T Burgess over Crabtree and leaving it until the final to play comfortably our best half are the kind of things I'm talking about.

There is no "OK" option. I am realistic, most of the reasons are out of his control the main being the number of players he has to choose from. Also the Aussies & Kiwis are improving as well. As I have said to the point of boring everyone untill the game is in schools & the game of choice for 10 times the number now playing we won't get anywhere near winning no matter who we have as coach. He is a good organiser & coach, let him stick with the job

He was terrible at Bradford and the same for England.
His squad selection was awful and team selection worse.
It seems well known in the game that he didn't know his best team, didn't have any tactics or gameplan and couldn't motivate his squad.
His man management was obviously poor with a third of his squad out drinking disobeying his instructions. Their respect for him comes into that too.
Sending Hock home was fully justified but leaving Graham out of the first game v Australia was ludicrous. Many other forms of disciplinary action were available and could have been taken leaving Graham to play.
His media relations were a disaster with him saying Hardaker was ill when it took Leeds just a coupe of days to contradict that.
McNamara was one of the worst coaches England have ever had.
I see in the trade press the RFL are talking to him about a new deal!

He did everything he could, but was seriously let down by a small number of players who disrespected the jersey and acted like children. Mcnamara took the right course of action by trying to keep matters internal, but again certain players made that difficult. Selection aside, which IMO is always a matter of personal preference he did a good job and was moments away from seeing us reach the final. If you got rid, who would you replace him with?

Darryl Powell. Been in the setup before.
Superb coach and wouldn't let club loyalties get in his way. The role does not need to be full time anymore.

Too many bad calls. We were 'learning on the job' with regard to Tom Burgess. It took us 4 games to pick the right half back combination and we chopped and changed the hooker system, Roby, Roby and Burrow, Roby and McIllorum...

We have been preparing for years for this competition, none more so than the two weeks in SA to decide these combinations. We learnt nothing from SA, the Italy game and not much from there on in.

The quality of the playing group has improved since 2008, but they were not prepared as well as they could have been.

Correct, we had the best forwards, comparable backs, but after that nobody to actually make use of either both at coaching level and through that with the halves and hooker decisions

So success or fail?

Fail