ENGLAND coach Stuart Barrow believes his team needs to retain belief that they can compete with nations in the Southern Hemisphere after a 24-6 defeat to Samoa in Wollongong ended their Women’s World Cup journey.
Freedom Crichton Ropati bagged a first-half hat-trick for Samoa to put her team in the driving seat, before Mercedez Taulelei-Siala and Fanua Rimoni added their names to the scoresheet after the break, either side of what proved to be a consolation try for Evie Cousins.
England will now head home after having missed out on a place in the semi-finals following just one win in the group stages, but Barrow remains hopeful.
When asked if he believed closing the gap was possible, he responded: “We’ve got to have belief we can, but back home we need more of an investment into the women’s and girls’ game.
“It can’t just be a token gesture at some clubs; I’m not saying it is, but we need to put money into it.
“We need to put it into facilities and training time to try and keep pace; otherwise we’ll just have a really good domestic competition that really struggles on the international stage.
“I put the pathways in place with this being the end product to produce more players – that’s great and we’re doing that, but we’ve got to find a way of making our competition better, and that comes down to the investment of resources.
“I think Super League has progressed to a certain level – we are bringing players through. I’ve got no complaints about that, I think it’s really good and impressive.
“At the same rate we’re progressing, it’s probably accelerating on the other side of the world with the investment into the NRLW. It’s not only making the Jillaroos better, it’s making all of the Pacific nations better.”
