\u2018There\u2019s always a chance\u2019.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s the mindset in the England camp as they navigate a nervous 48-hour wait to see if their IRL Rugby League World Cup dream still has a pulse.\u00a0<\/p>\n
A scratchy 34-12 victory over a spirited Papua New Guinea on Friday night left England needing a miracle to keep their tournament alive.<\/p>\n
To qualify for the semi-finals, Brian McDermott\u2019s men need Tonga to beat Samoa by 47 points in Sunday night\u2019s showdown between the Pacific rivals at a sold-out CommBank Stadium.\u00a0<\/p>\n
England recognise it\u2019s unlikely but haven\u2019t given up hope just yet.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ll watch it together as a team,\u201d captain George Williams said. \u201cThere\u2019s always a chance, it\u2019s obviously pretty slim but hopefully Tonga can give us a bit of a miracle.<\/p>\n
[Tonga coach Kristian Woolf] texted me today saying they\u2019re going to do that, try and win for us.\u201d<\/p>\n
England entered Friday’s match at a 68-point differential disadvantage to Samoa and knowing they had to chase points from the opening whistle.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The early signs were promising as they jumped out to a 22-0 lead after 21 minutes. From there, the Kumuls steadied the ship and the points dried up.\u00a0<\/p>\n
It took England another 48 minutes to cross for their next try as their hopes of a big win evaporated. In that time, PNG coach Jason Demetriou delivered a half-time spray that spurred his team into action and they scored two quick tries after the break to make it 24-12.<\/p>\n
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At that point, PNG looked every chance of finishing over the top of their rivals and England\u2019s focus shifted to simply winning the match.\u00a0<\/p>\n
McDermott\u2019s side eventually steadied the ship to claim two late tries and secure a 22-point victory but it was not the margin they had in mind.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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Such were the emotions after the game, the coach initially described the result as a loss in his post-match press conference before correcting himself.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a difficult situation to find ourselves in the second half,\u201d McDermott said. \u201cIf all we needed to do was win the game, I reckon we would have handled the nature of the second half a lot better.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou just kick the ball long, defend a couple of sets and keep hold of possession for a little while but we had to score 60 points. That was the narrative and has been the narrative for two weeks.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe dealt with that a lot better last week. PNG are a bit more physical than France and certainly were more physical in the second half after they had a blast at half-time by the coach.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt feels like we lost the game. We won the game and I\u2019m really proud but I think something remarkable is going to have to happen for us to go through.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Barring a miracle, Friday\u2019s result brings to a close a disappointing World Cup campaign for the English.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The exit of Shaun Wane in January and McDermott\u2019s appointment in April left the new coach with just six months to build a squad and develop a playing style suited to the fast-paced Australian game.<\/p>\n
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AJ Brimson Try<\/p>\n
While there were promising signs, a Week 1 loss to Tonga in Perth ultimately left the nation chasing results for the remainder of the competition.\u00a0<\/p>\n
McDermott signed a short-term deal to the end of the tournament but is eager to remain in charge through to the next World Cup and is confident the platform has been laid for future success.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019d like to do the job,\u201d he said. \u201cI have a four-year plan in place for the next World Cup, which is how it should be.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m really excited by that because if we can do what we\u2019ve done over the last three weeks, if we can put that into a plan for the next four years and have a proper, strategic plan building up to the next World Cup, that would be good.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u2018There\u2019s always a chance\u2019. That\u2019s the mindset in the England camp as they navigate a nervous 48-hour wait…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":662210,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[85,46,105],"class_list":["post-662209","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/662209","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=662209"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/662209\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/662210"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=662209"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=662209"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=662209"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}