England look set to exit the Rugby League World Cup but head coach Brian McDermott has reaffirmed his desire to coach the nation beyond the end of his current contract.

England beat Papua New Guinea 34-12 but that scoreline is unlikely to be enough to qualify them for the semi-finals of the tournament, with McDermott’s side now needing Tonga to beat Samoa by 47 points or more.

With that very unlikely, it seems that England’s World Cup is over and with that, McDermott’s contract as he was only appointed by the Rugby Football League until the end of the tournament.

However, the Gold Coast Titans assistant has made it very clear that he wants to remain as head coach and build a proper England programme, something he again affirmed after the win against PNG.

“I keep ringing them but they won’t answer the phone,” McDermott joked when asked if he’d spoken to the Rugby Football League about his future, adding: “No, I haven’t talked to anybody about that. Let’s get this job out the way, there’s enough time to talk about it.”

England’s Rugby League World Cup semi-final hope lives on after France thrashing – click here to watch the latest episode of the Serious About Rugby League Show!

‘No conversations’ during Rugby League World Cup about McDermott’s future

McDermott has been clear from the moment that he was appointed that he intended to stay on and ideally take England into the 2030 Rugby League World Cup, and he’s reiterated that point again.

Most Read on Serious About Rugby League

He said: “I’ve made it public and I’ll say again, I’d like to do the job and have a four-year plan in place for the next World Cup, which is how it should be.

“I’m really excited about that, because if we can do what we’ve done over the last three weeks, if we can put that into a plan for the next four years, have a proper strategic plan building up to the next World Cup, that would be good but we don’t need to talk about it.

“There’s been no conversation about that during this World Cup here, we’re just going to need to nail what we need to do now.”

When asked if foundations have been laid for the future, he said: “For sure. I think if we come together next year as a group, we’re going to be further down the track and we don’t need to start from scratch.”

Highlighting just how much work has gone into the last few weeks, McDermott said: “You bear in mind on Friday when we landed, when the UK boys landed in Perth, we started talking to each other like we don’t know each other. I put certain things in place about who we are as a group, what it means to us, how we’re going to play, how we’re going to attack, how we’re going to defend. There’s been a tonne of work gone on.”

What do England need to improve?

With a World Cup exit now looming, McDermott was asked what he felt he needed from the RFL in order for England to be stronger the next time they play – something that he wouldn’t get into.

“You’re opening up a tin of worms now about what the international game needs for England, that’s a different conversation,” he said, however, he did explain how and why he feels his side have taken steps in this tournemant.

He argued: “I think we’ve made massive strides together in such a short period of time, in really difficult circumstances, where the narrative of the last two weeks is you’ve got to win by 70 and you’ve got to win by 60.

“You don’t just need to win, you need to win by massive margins. You take all that into consideration. I thought today was good. Frustrating as anything in the second half, but again, I’m making reference to the flow of the game. That wasn’t to do with us, the game had no flow.”