England head coach Brian McDermott made a marked point that his side would be trying to find a “point of difference” in this World Cup through a new playing style.
After an opening round 30-12 loss to Tonga, questions have begun as to whether it worked.
It was clear what England’s game plan was from the outset. They were focused on second phase attack and posing a strong attacking threat.
Their forwards fronted up against a powerful Tongan pack but as the game went on, a lack of last play options, structured play in good ball, and errors with ball in hand cost England.
For McDermott, his side managed to pull off the style he was looking for in patches but ultimately, especially at the end of sets, they were “too erratic”.
“On occasions, I think we opened up in that first 20 and whether we went through the middle or went through the edge, we found ourselves in a good ball position. We had some scrappy finishes to those good ball sets,” McDermott said.
“Whether we made an error or even if we got to the end of the set, it was a scrappy finish and it was too erratic. We wanted to put a load of fatigue into Tonga and credit Tonga as well. I thought they were terrific defensively in terms of breaching their line and cracking their line open.
England’s Dom Young
“I thought we did that two or three times in that first half, but they came up with some try-saving tackles. A lot of credit goes to Tonga. The fact that we didn’t score on the try-line doesn’t suggest that our game plan needs to change. We’ve just got to be more patient and knock off the ball as much as we can.”
Out of England’s hands – how can they still get through?
Because of the Rugby League World Cup’s unique format, England’s chances of getting into the semi-finals are now technically out of their hands following their opening-round loss.
England are in a unique group structure that consists of Groups B and C. Group B is England, Lebanon, Samoa, while Group C is France, Papua New Guinea, Tonga. The structure of Group B and C is that those in one group only play those in the other group.
Haumole Olakau’atu scores a try against England
It means England now have to try and post high scores against France and Papua New Guinea and hope that Tonga beat Samoa convincingly. That way, it would be a straight contest between Samoa and England of who can score the most points.
It goes against McDermott’s own ethos to know his side are chasing the tournament and he is cautious of England not becoming so focused on the intricacy of the task at hand that they “trip themselves up”.
“We know what’s in front of us now. We’ve got to win the next two games. We’ve got to improve on the things that we need to improve upon,” he added.
Tonga’s Dallin Watene-Zelezniak is tackled by England’s Victor Radley, Harry Smith, Sam Walters and Brad O’Neill
“But, again, I’ve seen enough which is telling me we’re heading in the right direction. And, again, when you can identify when you’ve lost and it’s not to do with being physically outdone or strategically outdone, which I don’t think it was, it gives me a tremendous amount of confidence.
“It’s a bit ironic, isn’t it? Because I’ve just been said about not chasing points and not chasing scoreboards. We certainly don’t want to trip ourselves up.
“I don’t know. It’s going to be tremendously disrespectful to either France or PNG to suggest that we’re going to rack a load of points up on Saturday right now. Real early after the game, we’ll come up with a plan for France, we’ll come up with a plan for PNG.”
What’s next?
England must regroup ahead of facing France in Perth next Saturday, kick-off 7.35am (UK and Ireland time).
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