Brian McDermott

But the responsibility of leading your nation, I think it's a big deal, though.

And it's a big deal, and it's something that should be cherished.

I feel very privileged that I've been given that responsibility, very excited by it.

Yeah, so it would be up there if not the proudest moment of my coaching career at least.

Yep.

Well, first off, recognise what we did well.

And I reckon what we did well last year is probably what we've always done well.

Yeah.

is that we're up for the battle, up for the fight.

You know, I remember playing when I started playing professionally, actually, I just left the military.

And I think this is generally speaking, I reckon we had the outside backs to really trouble the opposition, but we didn't really have the pack that could match Australia's pack.

And I think that's swung round over the last 20, 30 years.

Whereas we've got a pack now and have had a pack, you know, go back to your ear and, you know, the Jamie Peacock here and Adrian Morley here and Sammy, Sammy Burgess, you know, we've always had a pack there that could challenge and get over the top of Australia's pack or the leading nation's pack, you know, the Kiwis.

But we've been, we've probably been found wanting in our outside backs for the last couple of decades at least.

So,

So if you understand that and you understand what we've done well, I don't think passion or getting up for the fight is going to be an issue.

I'm not paying lip service to that, and we certainly need to dig deep again.

But we've got to make sure that we do something different or do something with a point of difference to be able to compete with a team that's come out of the NRL, that use certain tools and use certain systems on an elite level most weeks, where...

I've got to get this right because I don't want to sound disrespectful to Super League.

I think I'll address the point to start with.