Coach Wayne Bennett says England’s World Cup campaign will be over soon if they don’t start playing for the full 80 minutes.
England has booked a place in the quarter-finals against Papua New Guinea after defeating France 36-6. It was a hot start for England, running in 26 points, but they managed just 10 more in the second half. Notoriously gruff coach Bennett was not pleased after the match.
“The road ahead for us is going to be short if we don’t get these two halves of football right,” he mused.
“My major concern is us right now. I’m not thinking much further than getting through today and we got through it with no injuries, which is good. We may not have anymore time to get it right. It’s not something that’s going to take a lot of research and a lot of effort to get it right.
“It was the same result as last week really. We scored six points last week and 10 points this week (in the second half) after laying a really good foundation. It’s not a concern…. yet. I don’t want to take away from France’s effort, I’m just talking about our effort. The second half wasn’t as good as the first half.”
England’s attack was red-hot in the opening stanza, running in try after try with Luke Gale and Kevin Brown, along with James Roby, combining well. But more mistakes were made in the second half as players swapped positions and structure was lost.
Coach impressed with Widdop, Brown, Roby & Taylor
📲 Full press conference on the #ouRLeague members site and app
“It’s going to take a bit of discipline and appreciate what gave you the 24 points in the first place,” Bennett said.
“I’m not thinking it happened out of some magical half of football, which it wasn’t. Half looked good what we did, but the point was it was borne out of the lead-up to it. In the second half they didn’t want to do that lead up. It can be fixed.”
It is the Kumuls next up for England in Melbourne. Papua New Guinea are on a high are three straight wins against Wales, Ireland and the United States on home turf. England will be heavy favourites against the southern hemisphere nation, but Bennett believes they will be a tough prospect.
“I haven’t seen them play very much,” he said.
France have bowed out of the World Cup after losses to Lebanon, Australia and England. French coach Aurelien Cologni was impressed by England and believes they could challenge the Kangaroos in the final.
"They showed good shape, changed a lot of things today, their organization,” he said.
"I think there are four or five teams, like Fji and Tonga, who can have a good finish. and I think New Zealand will react too. England will be in that group. When they fix little things, it's an open World Cup, more than top three, now four or five teams how can push the Kangaroos to the limit and England will be one of them."