England boss Brian McDermott labelled his side’s attacking display as “erratic” in their 30-12 Rugby League World Cup defeat to Tonga.

McDermott’s new-look attacking game plan needs some clear tweaking after his team were kept scoreless for the first 45 minutes of the game.

AJ Brimson broke the deadlock thanks to a line break from Hugo Savala, but far too many opportunities went begging, particularly in the opening 40.

Far too many balls went to ground, with a surplus of handling errors going against England’s plan for free-flowing footy.

McDermott was quick to credit Tonga in his post-match press conference, but stated that his side’s ill-discipline with the ball was largely down to their demise.

“They’re a big team, strong team,” the boss said after his first game in charge. “They’ve got some tremendous players in there, and I thought we stuck toe-to-toe with them for nearly all the game.

“Some tries through kicks, which are always hard to defend, and then towards the back end of the game we made some errors there chasing the scoreboard, which I’m not going to say is an easy fix, but it’s something that can change.”

Assessing how his side’s attack went, it was an honest verdict from McDermott, who was asked if the style of play was what he wanted.

“On occasions, yeah. I think we opened up Tonga in that first 20. Whether we went through the middle or the edge, we found ourselves in a good ball position, but we had some scrappy finishes to the good ball sets.

“Whether we made an error or even if we got to the end of the set, it was a scrappy finish. 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 and cracking their line, 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 the tries 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 did.”

McDermott confirmed that no players picked up injuries “as of yet.” No update was given on either Morgan Smithies or Morgan Knowles.

England now unlikely to reach Rugby League World Cup semi-finals after Tonga defeat

With the mixed pool B+C being settled on head-to-head before points difference should teams be level on points, it means that England now are in an outside spot to make the final four.

England must now hope that Tonga defeat Samoa in week three, whilst also win both remaining games by a considerable margin in order to try and better Samoa’s points difference.

However, at the minute McDermott isn’t looking ahead that far. All he knows is that his side need to win both of their two remaining group games.

“We know what’s in front of us now,” he revealed. “We’ve got to win the next two games. We’ve got to improve on the things that we need to improve upon.

“I’ve seen enough tonight, which is telling me that we’re heading in the right direction. 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.

Asked if the side can now play with freedom given that there is nothing to lose, he replied: “Nah, not really. You can’t play with freedom, not at international level.

“You’ve got to keep hold of the ball, as we saw today. Trying to get fatigue into the opposition is a hard thing if you’re dropping the ball, as we did. We’re not going to trip ourselves up trying to come up with a plan about scoring 50 points next week.”

Related Topics