HALFBACK Harry Smith says England got the balance right in their search for points in their 82-0 victory over France in Perth on Saturday.
Brian McDermott’s side needed a big score at HBF Park, as they battled to keep their World Cup semi-final hopes alive following their defeat to Tonga on the opening weekend.
Dom Young and Herbie Farnworth were both on hand with hat-tricks against the French, with Mikey Lewis bagging a brace, and Matty Ashton, George Williams, Victor Radley, Jez Litten, Jack Welsby and AJ Brimson all going over for tries as well.
“It was a great game,” Smith said.
“It’s a bit weird going into matches knowing you need to post points, but I thought we got the balance right. We didn’t look too scratchy where we were trying to force things, so I really enjoyed it, and I hope the fans did as well.
“You’re never going to just run through teams and score loads of tries; it’s not under-12s. We just had to build the game early on, and fair play to France, they came to play and put it on us.
“We were never just going to score in the first minute and run away with it; you’ve got to get fatigue in the game before things start opening up – we did that and then managed to post points quickly.
“As a group, we spoke about controlling what we can control – playing the way we want to play while trying to post points.
“We’ll try to get together now and get some good recovery travelling over to Sydney, and then Wollongong. We’ll connect as a group and get a good game plan together to play against a tough team like Papua New Guinea.
“The fans have been brilliant and hopefully we put on a show for them.”
