Australia now in a league of their own, says Reilly

Ex-Castleford star Reilly was part of the last Great Britain team to triumph in the Ashes when he helped inspire glory Down Under in 1970.

As an astute coach 20 years later, he masterminded a marvellous win at Wembley and had their opponents rattled further in the Old Trafford second Test only to be cruelly denied by Mal Meninga's agonisingly late try.

Australia won the Elland Road decider and that is the nearest any side from these shores has come to ending an abysmal record that is now entering its fourth decade.

So much so that, under Steve McNamara, the current England side face a Four Nations dead-rubber versus Papua New Guinea in Auckland on Saturday after already being swept aside convincingly by both New Zealand and their traditional nemesis – the Green and Golds.

It left more unanswered questions about the state of the domestic game and the chasm between them and Australia, in particular, seems as worryingly vast as ever.

"Quite frankly, Australia are so far in front in game-related intensity and development it's just not funny anymore," Reilly told the Yorkshire Post.

"We'll never, I think, beat Australia in a series again.

"Their development programme is tremendous. The difference has been shown yet again in these Four Nations games."

The highly-respected Yorkshireman has valuable experience on both fronts having played for Manly-Warringah, helping the Sydney club to their first premiership in 1972, while he coached Newcastle Knights to their first title in 1997.

"I feel for Steve (McNamara)," added Reilly.

"He's maybe still learning the trade but can only coach what he's got. The general intensity of our competition is inferior to Australia. We need to bring it up.

"We need to look at better conditioning, increasing players' size and their explosive power and, of course, mental attitude."

Reilly, 62, is a firm believer that the standard of the domestic game is the principal reason underpinning the international failure.

"I watched England on Sunday and after 32 minutes Australia hadn't made an error," he said.

"They'd completed 15 sets on the trot but England were turning ball over and you just can't do that.

"You are only hurting yourself. They had no patience but that's because of the pressure.

"Somehow we've got to get 25 players that can cope with those demands. We haven't got State of Origin like the Aussies – Yorkshire v Lancashire fell apart years ago – and not being able to recreate something of that committed nature hampers us.

"The Origin games go up by 20 per cent on anything else and gets their players prepared for international football."

One theory being espoused is that more English players must ply their trade in the unforgiving NRL to raise standards.

Sam Burgess and Gareth Ellis have done so, winning both the praise of their Australian peers and Reilly who, as a judge on the Rugby League International Federation panel this week voted them the world's finest second-row pairing.

England captain James Graham and St Helens team-mate James Roby are tipped to move to Australia at the end of next season and Reilly said: "In my five years over there, I played my best football.

"When I returned from that '70 tour I went back out to Australia with the sole purpose of finding myself a club.

"I joined Manly. The intensity was greater, it was all a bigger challenge while the climate was more conducive to training and you got so much more done.

"What's happened to Burgess and Ellis shows it's the right way."

Meanwhile, Reilly freely admits he still darkly thinks back to 1990 when his unfancied Britain side came so close to defeating the star-studded Kangaroos.

They had not won a home series for 31 years but – 1-0 up after Wembley – were locked 10-10 in Manchester with just 20 seconds remaining when Ricky Stuart sold Lee Jackson a dummy and Meninga motored home.

"Paul Loughlin scored an intercept for us on 70 minutes," recalled Reilly.

"He was always going to score but did it too comfortably. Laurie Daley came across and pushed him towards the left corner.

"Paul was our goalkicker but he refused to take it and gave it to Paul Eastwood instead – a left-footer on the left side.

"If Paul had pinned his ears back he'd have got another 10 metres nearer the posts, he'd have kicked the goal himself and we'd have been two in front with 10 to go.

"We'd have grown another leg. Instead, Paul (Eastwood) missed, it was left at 10-10 and, in injury-time, a stupid, outrageous dummy ...

"It was minuscule how far away we were from winning a Test series.

"We so nearly got there, Australia were there for the taking and, if we had won, we would have kicked on and become stronger. The Aussies' mindset would have been affected too.

"But it's such a long time ago now and I feel we're as far away as ever."