Captain’s Preview: England vs Papua New Guinea

With the Rugby League World Cup reaching the Quarter-Final stage, Prost International spoke to both England and Papua New Guinea’s respective captain’s ahead of the clash at the D.W. Stadium.

With a place in the final four of the competition at stake, there’s obviously a lot riding on the encounter with both sides shaping up well for the clash in Wigan.

After a positive week of ticket sales setting up for a near sell-out, it’ll be a great atmosphere with a packed in crowd who will be rallying behind the home nation who will be preparing for a Semi-Final clash against either Tonga or Samoa at Arsenal’s Emirates Stadium, should they progress.

Speaking to Leeds Rhinos man and PNG captain Rhyse Martin, he believes the squad have grown confidence from the group games and past experiences of playing together.

Martin said: “We’ve built nicely off the last two games. We’re a close group and we’ve built over the last couple of games. We’ve beaten Great Britain before in 2019 which was a massive win for us and we’ve still got that core group and then we beat Fiji in the mid-season test.

“I thought we was unlucky in the first game (against Tonga) as a few things didn’t go our way but we’ve built confidence off that and we’ve come through the last two games well.”

He also spoke about the honour that it is to lead his side out at this tournament and what it would mean if the Kumuls were able to pull off a huge underdog story and go all the way In the completion.

Photo Credit: Josh Knowles, Prost International

Martin added: “It’s probably the highest achievement in my career (to be captain). To do this in my career is pretty special and I’ve played for Kumuls since 2014 so to captain them in a World Cup is special to me and to my family so it’s a really proud moment.

“If we went home with the trophy I honestly don’t know what would happen in Papua New Guinea. I don’t think it would be a party for a week, it’d be a year, two years, three years. It would be absolutely mental if we took the trophy home to Papua New Guinea.

“For my family, they’re my biggest supporters. They’d be just as happy as I would as if they was winning it so I’d love to take the trophy home.”

As for the host nation, England manager Shaun Wane made it clear earlier this week that his side’s preparations have the upmost respect for their opponents and know exactly what kind of damage PNG can do.

Speaking at the ‘Captain’s Run’, Catalan Dragons’ Sam Tomkins reiterated the respect for the Kumuls and how dangerous of a side England are facing on Saturday.

Tomkins said: “We’re not going to underestimate Papua New Guinea. We’re going to play our strongest side and there’s players that aren’t playing that would comfortably get into many other national sides so injuries are inevitable, but we’ve got a very strong 24 and the 17 will be more than capable tomorrow.

Photo Credit: Josh Knowles, Prost International

“We’ve started really well but we’ve been waiting for the knockout-stages. We’ve had three comfortable wins but tomorrow will certainly be our toughest test and we’re ready for that.

“They’re (PNG) a physical side, they’ve got a couple of smart half-backs that like to run the ball and if you let their middles be dominant and take control then they’ve got some big outside-backs who can damage you.

“The two halves are two pivotal, they run and kick the ball very well so we need to do a job on the middles and let the half-backs have as little time as possible.”

With the 19-man squads being announced, there was a couple of surprises with Luke Thompson being left out of the England squad who misses out along with Andy Ackers, Ryall Hall, Joe Batchelor and Mikolaj Oledzki.

It’s a big call from Wane to leave out the experience of Ryan Hall, but starlet Dom Young looks more than capable after blowing the competition away so far with eight tries in the opening three games.

As for PNG, they named a return for duo Watson Boas and Sylvester Namo as well as McKenzie Yei who comes back into contention at the D.W. Stadium.

With the occasion being heightened even further by a guest appearance from the Princess of Wales, Kate Middleton, it’s set to be quite the afternoon at the D.W. Stadium with the Quarter Final set to kick off at 2:30pm and available to watch on BBC One.