BURGESS BLOW
England in gutsy loss as star Sam limps out
ALOSS for England, but plenty to work with. This was no mismatch, and while Sam Burgess’s injury was a blow, wily coach Wayne Bennett said he would settle for a narrow defeat by the tournament favourites in the World Cup opener.
That is what he got, after England — somehow only down 10-4 at the interval — spent long periods on their own line defending while failing to capitalise on chances at the other end.
Bennett had the luxury of Sam Burgess for the first 35 minutes, with the second row displaying his trademark no-nonsense approach in both defence and attack.
But shortly before the break, a knee injury forced him off, with Bennett confirming he is unlikely to feature until the semi-finals, should England get there.
‘Sam’s done a medial (knee), that’s three to four weeks,’ Bennett said. ‘ We’ve a quality team here. Sam’s always going to be a loss to any team. But we managed without him tonight.’
With or without Burgess, England lacked a cutting edge in attack and were plagued by some familiar errors. Australia may have run out winners — flattered on the scoreline by a late Josh Dugan try — but England have reasons to be optimistic.
‘The biggest challenge is getting the bad habits out of them,’ Bennett added. ‘The way they stuck at it a couple of times in tricky situations ( was pleasing). A huge improvement.’
After an opening half that could not have looked more like Ground
hog Day had Bill Murray walked out holding an alarm clock with Sonny and Cher blaring from the speakers, it seemed like another humbling was ahead. Once again, England showed promise, but made ludicrous errors, kicked abysmally, and were outsmarted by the hosts.
However, they did offer some hope, when inside five minutes Gareth Widdop’s pass found Jermaine McGillvary, who touched down. England needed to be flawless, but that proved impossible as they were undone by intelligent Australian kicking.
Australia do not require any assistance, and as the men in white’s tally of dropped balls and missed tackles increased, Matt Gillett crashed over.
Another idiotic penalty, given away late in the tackle count, allowed Billy Slater to sneak through to open up a 10-4 lead for the hosts.
After the break, and presumably some straight talking from Bennett, they were handed a rare repeat set on the Aussie line, only for Jonny Lomax to knock on.
But this was better from England, who made a number of line breaks against a home side presumably wondering how they were not already out of sight. As the half progressed, the visitors moved on to the front foot, and when Slater dropped a Widdop bomb under the sticks there was hope of a breakthrough.
Ryan Hall came close in the 74th minute, but was bundled into touch. Moments later a penalty, awarded after a two-man tackle, was converted by Cameron Smith to take the game out of reach.
With England abandoning caution, Widdop’s dink out wide was gathered by Dugan, who raced 80 yards to score.
Was it an unfair result? After the first-half display, probably not.
Bennett will have been heartened with the performances and the team’s understanding should only get better over the coming weeks. With or without Burgess there were indications that England could reach the December 2 final. The problem will be that the Aussies — their likely opponents — will improve too.