Jermaine blasts himself for lazy Kangaroos show
England’s man-ofthe-match Jermaine McGillvary berated himself for his “laziness” after his side suffered an 18-4 defeat by Australia in the opening game of the 2017 World Cup.
The Huddersfield winger was among the shining lights in an encouraging performance by England, who were in the game until the last five minutes when an eight-point scoring burst gave their hosts a flattering margin of victory.
McGillvary had given England a fourth-minute lead with his fifth try in just six appearances and also caught the eye with a series of strong and mazy runs out of defence but he was critical of his own performance.
“It was decent,” he said. “I thought the first half was alright from me but I got a bit lazy in the second half.
“I wasn’t happy and it’s something for me to work on on personal front. I thought I could have helped my team out a lot more.”
Two tries in eight minutes from Matt Gillett and Billy Slater edged the Kangaroos into a 10-4 half-time lead, but they could never fully shake off a gritty England side that refused to buckle even when talismanic forward Sam Burgess went off with a knee injury five minutes before the break.
“That shows the character of the team,” McGillvary said.
“One of the biggest icons in rugby league goes off after 30 minutes, but we still dug deep and worked really hard for each other. That shows where we’re going as a team.”
England coach Wayne Bennett was pleased with his team’s display, which he said was a contrast to their previous meeting with the Kangaroos which resulted in a 36-18 defeat at the London Stadium last November.
McGillvary was happy to draw encouragement from Friday’s performance, but unable to shake off the overall feeling of disappointment at an opportunity missed.
“It was an improvement on the last time we played them but obviously it’s not enough,” he said.
“It was a better performance but we’re here to win and it was still a defeat.
“It’s a journey, it’s not won or lost in the first game and we will take enough confidence from the game to know that, if we get them again, we can improve.”
McGillvary revealed that he scored his try from a set move that came from a conversation just before kick-off with playmaker Gareth Widdop, who was able to exploit a weakness in the game of his St George Illawarra team-mate, centre Josh Dugan.
“Gaz put his trust in me and he actually spoke about it just before we went out,” said McGillvary.
“He knows Dugan quite well and he says he comes out of the line. He tipped me up so I was ready.”
England will leave Melbourne today to set up camp in Sydney to prepare for their next group game against a Robbie Farah-led Lebanon team at the Allianz Stadium next Saturday, when victory would take them another step towards the quarter-finals.