Wigan Warriors star and reigning Man of Steel, Brad O’Neill, has revealed that the England camp are still hopeful of qualifying for the Rugby League World Cup semi-finals despite their advancement now being out of their hands.

O’Neill was one of the 17 to take to the field in the opening week of the competition, but was unable to guide his side to victory over Tonga – a defeat that looks to be far more costly than just two group stage points.

With England now being unable to top the group, it means that, should every side win as expected this week, their only hope of making it to the final four is if Tonga defeat Samoa in week three, meaning they would finish level on points with Samoa. They would then need to better the Samoan’s point difference, of which they are already 92 points adrift.

O’Neill spoke to English media on Tuesday morning to explain what went wrong against the Tongans and what they need to improve on going forward.

The Warriors hooker explained how the side had spoken about the fact that their hopes of progressing are not mathematically over, but at the same time, they are still taking the tournament “day by day and game by game.”

“I feel like we have discussed what is required,” said O’Neill. “We know that we are going to have to play really well in these next two games to qualify, but I’m very confident in the lads in this team that we can do it.”

With France next up, they face a much more familiar foe than that of Tonga, something that will stand them in good stead.

The England star added: “I feel like we play France in the Super League, obviously with Catalan and Toulouse, pretty regularly.

“There will be some familiar faces we’re facing. But yeah, we’re expecting a great game on the weekend. France have come off a loss like us, so I feel like they’re going to come firing, and I’m expecting a good game on the weekend.”

Brad O’Neill talks England’s hope for a semi-final miracle

Whilst it’s okay for boss Brian McDermott to say post-match that his side need to play with control, England can’t afford to put their cue on the rack, they must play for the full 80 trying to score as many points as they possibly can.

The bookies have put Samoa as 30-point favourites against Papua New Guinea this week, so a winning margin like that, followed by the loss to Tonga, would mean that England need to score well over 100 points in their next two matches.

Despite that, O’Neill revealed that the mentality going into this week won’t change.

“I feel like mentally we can’t go into this game thinking about the points difference,” he explained. We’ve got to go into this game hard-nosed like we did against Tonga, and hopefully if we do our job well enough, then we’re going to get the win.

“First of all, we’ve just got to think about our prep and getting that right and being hard-nosed like we were against Tonga and treating them with the same respect as well.”

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