England moved closer to a World Cup exit after a chaotic 34-12 win over Papua New Guinea that will almost certainly prove insufficient in the final reckoning. Since their opening loss to Tonga, England's aim in their two remaining group games was simple: win and win well to have any hope of reaching the last four.
They achieved that against France with a crushing 82-0 triumph, and looked on course to close the gap on Samoa when they led 22-0 after 22 minutes, courtesy of tries from Matty Ashton, AJ Brimson, Dominic Young and Harry Smith. However, things went badly wrong from there, despite head coach Brian Mc Dermott urging his players to be patient. Repeatedly coughing up possession and conceding penalties restored belief in the Papua New Guinea ranks, and Dudley Dotoi and Gairo Voro cashed in with tries for the Kumuls as England threw away the initiative.
The sight of England centre Herbie Farnworth being stripped of the ball moments before Mikey Lewis added another try to Morgan Knowles' second-half effort summed up how things had slipped away. England made 21 errors and managed just a 57% completion rate, hardly good enough at this or any level. It was the total opposite of the blueprint from the France game.
England can now only reach the last four if Tonga defeat Samoa by more than 46 points. Given Kristian Woolf's side lost 34-6 to Samoa a year ago in Brisbane and have not beaten their neighbours since 2018, that appears highly improbable.
Source: BBC Sport · Summarized by HeadlinesBriefing