STUART BARROW wants England to take the lessons of their heavy loss to Australia into tomorrow’s winner takes all clash with Samoa.
Whilst not quite the manner of last March’s 90-4 thrashing to the Jillaroos in Las Vegas, the 78-0 defeat continued to highlight just how far ahead the tournament favourites remain of their competitors.
A disallowed Anna Davies try was the closest England came to scoring against the Jillaroos, and Barrow admitted: “Of course we were really disappointed and the outcome was greater than we expected or wanted.
“But I thought the group still fought in the game all the way up until to the end of the final whistle.
“They were still turning up for each other, we just got blown away by a team who I think is one of the most dominant sports teams in the world right now across all sports.
“We’ve got a really young group and they will be better for this experience because they know where the game can be and what the game can look like, now they’ve played the best in the world.
“We competed as best we could, which was really good. We never gave up and that’s probably going to stand us in good stead going forward.”
Samoa, who opened their campaign with a 40-0 loss to Australia before easing past Wales last weekend, will provide another stern test for England in the sides’ shoot-out for a place in the semi-finals.
Returning to the halfback combination that started against Wales, Barrow has recalled Georgia Roche in place of Woman of Steel Jenna Foubister, who is dropped to 18th woman, whilst Georgia Wilson replaces Molly Jones in the centres and Evie Cousins comes in for Amelia Brown on the wing to make her first appearance at the tournament.
Eva Hunter is ruled out through an ankle injury, meaning Hollie-Mae Dodd, fresh from penning a new three-year deal with Canberra Raiders in the NRLW, comes into the second-row, with Mary Coleman taking her place at prop.
“It’s going to be a physical game and we’ve made that very aware to the girls, not that they need the coaching staff to tell them that,” warned Barrow.
“They’ve watched the games themselves so we know we’re in for a physical battle and we’re not shy of that, we’ve talked about it all week.
“We’ve looked at ways to combat that, we’re comfortable with what we’re facing but we know that challenge is going to be a big challenge.”
