England’s travel plans for the Rugby League World Cup have been called into question: with a suggestion that the organisers who paid for accommodation sent them on a ‘longer route on purpose’.

It took players and staff based in England almost 48 hours to get from Manchester to their base in Perth ahead of their opening World Cup match against Tonga.

They took a bus journey from Manchester to London, before flying to Singapore and having a lengthy layover there, ahead of a second flight to Sydney – instead of going straight to Perth. They then transferred internally from Sydney to Perth.

England travel plans questioned

And speaking on the Levels podcast, former Australia prop Willie Mason and co-host, the former Catalans and Wakefield forward Justin Horo, have discussed the situation and questioned why the English side took such a long-winded and complex journey.

“Did you hear about their flight plan that they got coming in?” Horo said.

“Yeah, they’ve been f*ngered, haven’t they?” Mason replied before Horo continued: “They tried to get over early. And so this is, I don’t know if it’s tactfully or not, but not everyone knows that the Australian Rugby League, there’s been a lot made about the payments.

“The Australian Rugby League has paid for flights accommodation for all staff and all the teams. So this was England’s trip in.. they had to fly to Singapore. They had to stop over for six hours in Singapore.”

“Business or economy?” Mason said. “It is a big difference. That’s a good question.”

Did ARL influence England plans?

Horo then continued: “But yeah, they flew to Singapore six hours. They went past Western Australia to Sydney. And then they settled in at Sydney and then they got a flight back to WA.”

“Oh, you a**holes,” Mason said. “Why can’t they just go straight from Singapore, straight down [to Perth]?”

Horo continued: “Well for people that aren’t aware, you know, when it comes to if you’re traveling – and I’ve looked at this because we went to the Ashes and we’ve done trips before – if you’re trying to save money, then you get two or three flights and it becomes a little bit cheaper. But you’ve got to go longer stopovers and different routes.

“So, did the World Cup committee, AKA the Australian Rugby League, send them on the longer route on purpose? It would have been to save money. That would have been it. That would have been 100% for you.”