England Trounce Papua New Guinea
ENGLAND beat Papua New Guinea to set up a World Cup semi-final against Tonga despite an error-strewn performance.
England built a healthy halftime lead after a double from winger Jermaine McGillvary and Alex Walmsley's score.
Ben Currie crossed after the break as Garry Lo got PNG on the board, but two tries from Kallum Watkins and a late try from Ryan Hall sealed the victory.
But the winning margin masked a 56% completion rate and an error count of 20 from Wayne Bennett's side. McGillvary was one of the bright points in Melbourne - the 29-year-old crossed for two almost identical scores as England found space down the right, taking his tally to six tries for the tournament.
Kato Ottio had PNG’s best chance of the first half but was denied on the hooter for a push on England’s Gareth Widdop.
The full-back, who was commanding at the back, then slipped through a delightful kick which was collected by Currie as England extended their lead in the second period.
When PNG scored through Castleford Tigers-bound Lo, a nervous wave rippled through the stadium, but McGillvary turned provider to set up centre Watkins before his diving effort and Hall’s finish out wide brought up seven tries for England.
Despite the flattering scoreline, coach Bennett is still waiting for an 80-minute performance from his side.
England’s inconsistency in attack has been a theme of the tournament, with wins against Lebanon and France in the group stage overshadowed by periods of sloppy play.
Against the French they made 13 handling errors, and managed 12 in the first half alone against PNG.
England half-back Luke Gale should have opened the scoring after two minutes when captain Sean O’Loughlin popped out a delicious offload in the tackle, but he failed to offload to the two men outside him.
A host of loose carries and spilled ball from forwards Sam Burgess and Chris Hill added to the error count, which increased further after the break.
James Graham carved open the PNG defence but a forward pass from interchange James Roby squandered another attacking set. That was a rare mistake from Roby who otherwise put in a controlled performance from the bench and will be pushing for a starting berth ahead of Josh Hodgson against Tonga next weekend. “I’m very pleased with the win,” Widdop told BBC Sport. “But we need to fix up a lot of areas of ball control - at the moment that is not good enough.” And Bennett will also be keen to see how standoff Kevin Brown is after he appeared to be briefly knocked out during the first half - an incident that led to his withdrawal at the break.