Steve McNamara, the England coach, said he hoped to be around to reap the benefits of experiences his young team had gathered during a luckless Four Nations campaign that almost certainly ended here in Dunedin.
This defeat to New Zealand at Forsyth Barr Stadium means for England to qualify for next Saturday’s final in Wellington they need Samoa to beat Australia by fewer than eight points in Wollongong on Sunday. The World Cup holders have never lost to a developing league nation and if Samoa were to create history by winning by more than nine points, they would qualify for the final instead of England.
“For our young team we’ve learned some tough and harsh lessons from the [World Cup] semi-final last season and these last couple of games,” McNamara said. “The team will be really strong for it. There won’t be many players leaving this group. So many players have made debuts on this tour and I think that’s the really exciting thing for English rugby league: we’ve got a really good team that’s only going to get better. It’s not – barring rugby union coming and pinching some of our players – going to get any weaker.”
When asked if he would be in the position to guide that development, McNamara said: “Yes, I hope so.” When he was reappointed to the post in January, no term was given by the Rugby Football League.
England will watch the Australia-Samoa game on television in Dunedin before it is determined if they are travelling onwards to Wellington or back to the UK.
As was the case in Melbourne against Australia they had long periods of strong play during a thrilling international in which all six tries were scored by wingers. As was also the case at AAMI Park they lacked the poise and execution to turn their penetration and speed into points – and also had no luck with conversions. Two of Gareth Widdop’s conversions struck the goalposts when they seemed certain to go through.
However, the campaign almost certainly boiled down to a penalty after full-time against the New Zealand centre Shaun Kenny-Dowall for pouncing on a Manu Vatuvei fumble from an offside position. A goal, tying the game, was not going to help England and they could not hold on to the ball long enough to score a match-winning try. The prop James Graham was left complaining to the English referee, Phil Bentham, that Kiwi defenders were offside.
“We’ve played really well the whole tournament,” McNamara said. “Last week it was a fingertip away. I thought we were the stronger team and controlled a lot of that game.
“Tonight we were the width of a goalpost away from winning again. It’s tough when it comes to that but this is the highest standard of competition, this is what it gets to, [these are] the fine margins at this level.”
The Leeds wing Ryan Hall posted two tries and had another disallowed, while New Zealand’s Jason Nightingale overcame a clash of heads with Dan Sarginson to post two tries of his own – and go close to a hat-trick.
Hall’s try in the 56th minute narrowed the margin to two and that is where it stayed during a frenetic finale when both sides came close to scoring on multiple occasions. Play was stopped at one point when a streaker invaded the pitch, using good evasive skills to escape the grasp of security before swan-diving into the in-goal.
The England captain, Sean O’Loughlin, backed McNamara’s claim that success was very close for the side and that the benefits of another unsuccessful tournament would be manifold.
“We’re a young side, reasonably inexperienced internationally and with the strides we’ve taken over the last few years, we feel like we’re bridging that gap,” the Wigan back row said. “We need to get over the line to be judged as being successful but we do think we’re getting closer. We’ll have another crack at the Kiwis next year It’s another opportunity to test ourselves.
“We’ve just got to keep playing as many of these games as we can. Hopefully, eventually, we’ll get over the line with it.”
New Zealand Hiku; Nightingale, Kenny-Dowall, Whare; Foran, Johnson; Bromwich, Leuluai, Blair, Mannering (capt), Proctor, Taumalolo Interchange Luke, Eastwood, Taupau, Harris.
Tries Nightingale 2, Vatuvei. Goals Johnson 2.
England S Tomkins; Charnley, Watkins, Sarginson, Hall; Widdop, Smith; G Burgess, Clark, Graham, Farrell, J Tomkins, O’Loughlin (capt) Interchange Ferres, T Burgess, Hill, Whitehead.
Tries: Hall 2, Charnley. Goals Widdop.
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