Passion of a nation stands between England and glory
Bennett’s team in hunt for first final since 1995 Surprise package Tonga riding wave of emotion
If England are to reach their first World Cup final in more than two decades, they will have to navigate their way past a Tongan storm that has been swirling since before the tournament had even begun.
The journey of Wayne Bennett’s England side to the semi-finals has not been quite as serene as their results suggest, but they have certainly kept a lower profile than the Tongans, who have been dropping jaws and garnering headlines week after week, game after game.
On a sporting level, this semifinal in Auckland is unlikely to prove as challenging as England’s opening game against Australia, which they lost 18-4. Yet this Tonga side have been the surprise of the tournament, and only a fool would underestimate the power of momentum in knockout competition.
Having already defeated New Zealand and dramatically edged past Lebanon in the quarter-finals, Tonga evidently have momentum on their side. They are unbeaten in the tournament and are riding a swelling wave that began to build a few weeks before their first match. The starting point of their World Cup adventure was the decision made by a string of leading New Zealand and Australia players to take advantage of new eligibility rules to play for Tonga instead.
At the forefront of the Kiwi exodus was Jason Taumalolo, seen by many as the world’s best forward, who had won 10 caps for New Zealand before switching. The other bombshell was Andrew Fifita, who had even been named in Australia’s squad before he jumped ship.
The defections were made possible by a change in regulations that allowed players who qualified for more than one nation to represent a second-tier country if they were not playing for Australia, New Zealand or England.
But it was not expected that players as high profile as Taumalolo would elect to represent the lowerranked nation as their first choice, especially because of the financial loss they would be making. Australia’s players could earn about £30,000 each if they win the World Cup, while Tonga’s are believed to be making less than £2,000.
It is no surprise, then, that passion has been the defining emotion of Tonga’s World Cup. That was most evident in the war dances ahead of kick-off against New Zealand, when Tonga challenged the pre-game haka, in which Taumalolo appeared to be targeted by the Kiwis, before producing a stirring version of their own war dance, the Sipi Tau.
There has been plenty to cheer about Tonga’s emergence in a sport that is dominated by so few nations. The message, though, did not seem to reach Bennett, who has this week been accused by the Tongans of playing “mind games” after he criticised the eligibility change.
“The game has to look at it and we have to treat the fans with a lot more respect than we did,” Bennett said. “It wasn’t what the game needed with the World Cup about to start, those headlines for two or three days. The boys in my opinion are entitled to play for who they want to play for, but we have got to have better guidelines around it.”
If it was an attempt to burst the Tongan bubble, it is unlikely to have worked. The side have been fervently backed throughout the tournament, and they have now been boosted by the support of yet more converted New Zealanders, who have leapt aboard the Tonga bandwagon after the Kiwis were knocked out by Fiji last weekend.
A string of shops in Auckland this week said they had sold out of Tongan flags, and the hostile atmosphere will only add to the impression that England are not so much facing a team as they are coming up against a movement.
They will do so with the same side that battled to a patchy 36-6 win over Papua New Guinea, provided stand-off Kevin Brown is passed fit to play after he was substituted with a knock to the head.
Bennett’s side will be hoping that winger Jermaine Mcgillvary can continue a run of form in which he has scored six tries in four games.