JEZ LITTEN says the overwhelming feeling in the England camp is one of frustration – with a 34-12 victory over Papua New Guinea not enough to secure a place in the World Cup semi-finals.
Brian McDermott’s side needed Tonga to beat Samoa by at least 46 points on Sunday afternoon in order to remain in the competition Down Under, but Tonga’s winning margin was only two points.
Litten believes a bigger score was there for the taking at the WIN Stadium in Wollongong, and is disappointed to be facing a trip home, despite just losing one game.
“It still felt frustrating even though we got the win – we left a lot of points out there with a few mistakes,” he said.
“It was a crazy situation, where we had to post a lot of points.
“We’ve had a good mindset in the last two weeks.
“There’s always things to learn, and things to admire as well. There were good signs in the Tonga game, it could have gone either way, but we were unfortunate to lose, and then found ourselves in a mad situation where we had to post points.
“We were well prepared during the year, and had meetings about how we wanted to play – we showed signs of that, but it is tough when you come into a World Cup and need to win every game in your group. It’s been tough, but those are the cards we’ve been dealt.”
