MARTYN SADLER reflects on England’s pyrrhic victory against the Kumuls.

ENGLAND’S 34-12 victory over Papua New Guinea in Wollongong felt more like a defeat, because it almost ensures that the English will not feature in the World Cup semi-finals.

And it’s all down to that opening 30-12 defeat against Tonga two weeks earlier, which gave England a mountain to climb that proved impossible against the Kumuls.

The strange thing was that this game was almost the total opposite to the previous week’s game against France.

In that game England failed to score in the first 20 minutes, but then scored 82 points in the final 60 minutes.

In this game England scored 22 points in the first 20 minutes, but then failed to score again until Morgan Knowles touched down eleven minutes from the end, by which time it was far too late to make any significant difference to the outcome, after the Kumuls had scored two tries early in the second half.

It was interesting to watch the game as presented on Channel 7, with Andrew Voss commentating and Trent Robinson as one of the pundits.

“They know how to balance the system with the chaos,” said Robinson, the coach who recently led the Sydney Roosters to the NRL Premiership, when England were blitzing the Kumuls early in the game.

Robinson was commenting after Harry Smith had scored England’s fourth try with just over 20 minutes gone to put them 22-0 ahead.

Of course the best outcome for England was to win by 68 points to pull level with Samoa on points difference and then rely on Tonga defeating Samoa on Sunday.

And the truth is that as the game unfolded England were playing against the clock as much as they were playing against the Kumuls.

But that meant that the greatest danger for England, apart from the challenge of the Kumuls, was that their anxiety to score might lead to them panicking in an effort to keep the scoreboard ticking over.

And after the fourth try that’s what seemed to happen.

It was important for England that their discipline should be strong. They couldn’t afford to give away penalties.

But that is what happened as the rest of the first half unfolded.

First of all, Matty Ashton gave away a penalty for tackling an opponent in the air when George Williams kicked the ball over the defence.

And then Junior Nsemba conceded a penalty in the ruck, meaning that England were having to spend time defending when they wanted to be attacking.

When they did get near the Kumuls’ line, Sam Walters dropped a pass from Morgan Knowles when he might have scored England’s fifth try if he had taken it.

And then George Williams dropped the ball just before the interval, although a penalty awarded to England allowed them to go into the interval at 24-0.

So we all sat back and waited for England to come out for the second half looking to repeat the points blizzard we saw against France a week earlier.

But when Dudley Dotoi touched down in the 47th minute, collecting a kick from Gairo Voro that Dom Young perhaps should have caught, things suddenly looked bad for England.

And when Junior Nsemba dropped what should have been a catchable pass from Jez Litten, England’s semi-final challenge looked to be on life support.

And the life-support was switched off when Gairo Voro of London Broncos, and the Championship Player of the Year in 2026, scored PNG’s second try.

“PNG are running harder and tackling harder,” said Trent Robinson.

“It’s been uncomfortable to watch England not get back into their rhythm.”

England finally managed to score their fifth try with a fortunate touchdown by Morgan Knowles and they added a sixth try from Mikey Lewis in the final minute.

But there was no celebration and the majority of the 16,063 attendance by the end of the game were applauding the spirit of the Kumuls.

It’s worth pointing out that the Kumuls are coached by London Broncos coach Jason Demetriou and that he had four of his Broncos team in his matchday 17, with stand-off Gairo Voro the obvious star of the team.

It seems ironic that the Broncos are almost begging to be allowed into Super League next year.

It’s all very disappointing from England’s point of view.

And of course if Tonga beat Samoa by 46 points on Sunday, we will still be in the competition.

Unfortunately the chance of that happening is vanishingly small.