England out of Women’s Rugby League World Cup as coach delivers verdict - ‘They’ll learn from this’

England coach Stuart Barrow admitted his side were beaten by the better team as their Women’s Rugby League World Cup campaign came to an end with a 24-6 defeat to Samoa.

England needed a victory in their final group game on Friday to reach the semi-finals, but were unable to overcome Frank Pritchard’s side in Wollongong.

Barrow’s team had opened the tournament with a 70-6 victory over Wales before suffering a heavy 78-0 defeat to defending champions Australia.

Their hopes of progressing rested on the meeting with Samoa, but England were unable to produce the result required to keep their World Cup campaign alive.

Reflecting on the defeat, Barrow felt his side struggled to gain territory in the first half, particularly against the wind, which left them with little opportunity to build pressure.

“We knew what to expect, we knew it was going to be physical, and they were going to roll us down the middle, and we trained all week at trying to handle that,” he said.

“I think in the first half we got to grips with it a little bit but we couldn’t get out of our own half against the wind as well and a couple of kicks that went out on the full didn’t help us, so we hardly had any good ball in the first half, so that takes a lot of juice out the tank.

“But in the second half we came out, we regrouped at half-time, and I thought like we looked like we could play a little bit but we bombed some chances there as well in the end, but I thought we lost to the better team on the day, I’m not going to deny it.”

Despite the disappointment of exiting the competition, Barrow believes the experience of playing Samoa will be valuable for England as they look to close the gap on the leading nations.

He also pointed to the age of his squad, which had an average age of 22, as a reason to be positive about the team’s future.

“I thought it was a good game and it’s a good game for England to be in because we’ve got a problem at the moment where we play France or Wales, and no disrespect to those nations, but we win them and then we play the Jillaroos and lose heavily, so this was quite a nice game to be in where it was competitive all the way and the more of those we can get as a nation will definitely help us, but we had a very young group, an average age of 22 across the group, and that includes Jodie who is older.

“There is a lot of tears in the dressing room knowing that’s her last game but they’ll learn from this. A lot of those of those players will go on in four years time and better for this experience and that’s a good place to leave it but we’re very sad to be going home on the plane tomorrow.”

Barrow admitted there was a strong sense of disappointment in the dressing room, with players and staff having believed they had a genuine chance of reaching the last four.

He said the squad had prepared with the belief that a strong performance against Samoa could earn them a place in the semi-final next week.

“It’s tough because nobody wants to go home tomorrow and there was a genuine belief coming into this game that we might be in the semi-final in Newcastle next week. I could feel it in the group, we felt it as staff, so we did all the prep and thought if we get it right, there’s a chance that we could be in the semi-final next week, so they are really despondent in there.

“But they also know that they’ve had a pretty unique experience here. They’ve got to play the world champions, they’ve got to play in a tight test match and they’ll learn from that, so there’s tears, there’s a lot of tears, but there’s also a lot of togetherness which is really good. It hasn’t split them and they’re getting around each other in there, so it’s positive again for the future.”