{"id":941295,"date":"2026-10-26T07:40:09","date_gmt":"2026-10-26T07:40:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/941295\/"},"modified":"2026-10-26T07:40:09","modified_gmt":"2026-10-26T07:40:09","slug":"england-duo-must-return-for-png-tie-in-rugby-league-world-cup","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/941295\/","title":{"rendered":"England duo MUST return for PNG tie in Rugby League World Cup"},"content":{"rendered":"

England<\/a> need to beat Papua New Guinea handsomely on Friday to stand any chance of qualifying for the semi-finals of the Rugby League World Cup.<\/p>\n

Even a big England win in their final group stage game would not be enough if Samoa went on to beat Tonga \u2013 who Brian McDermott\u2019s side lost their opener against \u2013 on Sunday.<\/p>\n

But having aided their cause with a resounding 82-0 win over France last weekend, all England can do is take care of their own business and hope for the best.<\/p>\n

Here are a couple of changes we think head coach should make to his side as they look to post a big score against the Kumuls\u2026<\/p>\n

IN: Mikey Lewis; OUT: Harry Smith (Reserves)<\/p>\n

This is the big one and just a few short weeks ago, we don\u2019t think there\u2019d have been many calling for it: we certainly wouldn\u2019t. But now, in the circumstances, we feel Lewis is the better option of the pair to chase points.<\/p>\n

Saturday\u2019s game in Wollongong is not about territory, or even really calm control, which Smith offers in abundance.<\/p>\n

England have to go hell for leather, and in the 20 minutes or so he played against France, Lewis came up with a couple of moments of real quality \u2013 the \u2018point of difference\u2019 in attack boss McDermott has mentioned a few times himself.<\/p>\n

For that reason, we\u2019re advocating Lewis to play alongside skipper Williams, with Smith taking a watching brief for this one.<\/p>\n

IN: Morgan Knowles; OUT: Luke Thompson (Bench)<\/p>\n

This one is a less controversial choice. Knowles would have been a starting front-rower in all of England\u2019s games at this World Cup had it not been for the calf injury which emerged ahead of the opening game against Tonga.<\/p>\n

McDermott confirmed last week that the powerful forward would be back in contention for the game against PNG, and providing he is fit, we\u2019d throw him in.<\/p>\n

England are going to need to spread the ball about as they go in search of points, but they have to earn the right to do so by winning the battle up the middle first of all.<\/p>\n

A firing Knowles does that better than most, and by the way, Luke Thompson is far from a bad option to introduce off the bench whenever required!<\/p>\n

Our England team for Papua New Guinea clash in full\u2026<\/p>\n

Starting 13: AJ Brimson, Dom Young, Hugo Savala, Herbie Farnworth, Matty Ashton, George Williams, Mikey Lewis, Max King, Brad O\u2019Neill, Morgan Knowles, Junior Nsemba, Kai Pearce-Paul, Victor Radley<\/p>\n

Bench: Jez Litten, Ethan Havard, Sam Walters, Ben Currie, Luke Thompson, Jack Welsby<\/p>\n

Reserves: Kallum Watkins, Zach Eckersley, Ben Talty, Harry Smith<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"England need to beat Papua New Guinea handsomely on Friday to stand any chance of qualifying for the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":941296,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,760,85],"class_list":["post-941295","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-rugby","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/941295","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=941295"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/941295\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/941296"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=941295"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=941295"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=941295"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}