England’s Rugby League World Cup campaign is all but over despite victory over Papua New Guinea in their final group stage game, with Brian McDermott’s side failing to score the requisite amount of points to give themselves a chance of qualifying for the semi-finals. The task was ominous pre-match, with England needing to not only beat the Kumuls and hope Tonga defeated Samoa on Sunday, but overturn a 68-point swing on the Samoans in the process. Technically it is still possible after England at least won in Wollongong, but the 22-point margin of victory means they are relying on a 46-point Tongan win.
In short, that is near-impossible. It means that for the first time in World Cup history, the semi-finals will take place without England on a miserable day in which their men’s and women’s sides were effectively consigned to early exits within hours of one another. It will represent a damning day for English rugby league on the whole, with the gap to the world’s best nations undoubtedly widening.
That is despite England looking like they were capable of holding up their end of the bargain inside a magnificent opening quarter. They scored four unanswered tries to lead 22-0 after just 21 minutes, and the prospect of winning by 68 – which would have meant a Tongan win of any kind would be enough to qualify at the expense of Samoa – felt entirely plausible. However, their game-plan then fell apart and a series of unforgivable errors with and without the ball meant they did not score another try for 50 minutes.
By then, Papua New Guinea had also scored twice to halve a 24-0 deficit at the interval and take any possibility of an England win by the requisite required margin off the table. Knowing they needed to score points aplenty, England began brightly. Matty Ashton finished a superb move on the left to open the scoring after six minutes before AJ Brimson cut through five minutes later.
England’s running game was too much for the Kumuls to handle, with George Williams laying the platform for Dom Young to cross before Harry Smith and Kai Pearce-Paul then combined to send the former through a gap. Leading 22-0 at such an early stage, eyes were already turning to how many more England could score to make Sunday’s final group game interesting. But McDermott’s side bombed three more glorious opportunities as half-time approached, and their lack of fluidity continued to desert them after the restart.
That enabled Papua New Guinea to gain a foothold in the game for the first time, and they scored their first try through Dudley Dotoi. Gairo Voro then cut through to make it 24-12; now, England had to focus on simply winning. They were at least able to stem any further threat of a remarkable comeback win for the Kumuls through Morgan Knowles and Mikey Lewis’ late tries, but the damage had already been done.
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