Liam Farrell column: '˜We have the side to trouble the Aussies'

The debate over Tonga's ruled-out try overshadowed the fact England played well and deserve to be in the final.
Liam Farrell and Joe Burgess took part in the community blitz earlier this weekLiam Farrell and Joe Burgess took part in the community blitz earlier this week
Liam Farrell and Joe Burgess took part in the community blitz earlier this week

I’m really looking forward to the match.

Australia are obviously the favourites, and they’ve shown in this tournament just how good they are.

They’ve only conceded three or four tries all competition, which underlines how important it is for England to take their chances.

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Australia are masters at the pressure game – completing their sets, zero errors, kicking long... we need to match them at that, but I also think we’ve got something else to offer.

Our pack did a great job against Tonga and neutralised many of their threats, and if we can repeat that – and have some controlled offloads as well – we could trouble them.

I honestly do think we’ve got the side to do it.

Gareth Widdop has done well since switching to full-back. I played on his edge in a previous tournament, and saw first-hand just how good he is.

He’s very classy and skilful with the ball in hand, and he’s a good talker, too.

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I’d be thrilled if they won. I’ve got to say, I don’t think it’s got the attention it deserves. This is England against Ausitralia in a World Cup Final – if it was any other sport, it would be on the main TV channels.

I hope it increases as we get closer to kick-off.

Of course, there are some people who believe Tonga – rather than England – should be in the final.

Me? I thought the ref’ made the right call. I didn’t think Fifita should have been awarded a try.

But there are plenty of crucial areas in a game – it’s wrong to focus on just one call. Go back to the Challenge Cup Final, people were talking about whether Tony Clubb should have been awarded a try.

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Don’t get me wrong, if it had been awarded and we’d won the game, we would have been buzzing, but Hull deserved the win.

We didn’t moan we had been robbed, because we didn’t take our opportunities during the game. We didn’t play well enough.

And if Tonga had taken more of their chances, it wouldn’t have come down to the final seconds.

It was great to see Jermaine McGillvary on the shortlist for the Golden Boot award.

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From playing against him regularly I know how good he is, but he’s been amazing for England, and it’s good to see him get the recognition he deserves.

The Wigan players worked through the night on Monday on a Community Blitz.

We dud a bit of training and then did different projects - we all had three or four each, so it was good to do different things and it was enjoyable.

I’m not sure about some of the lads’ decorating skills! But we seemed to do a decent job on the church and the MS Centre.

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The lads came together for a feed about 4am in the morning, we were all tired but there was a good feeling about it. I definitely saw the purpose of it.

And it was much better than what I had expected; when we’d been told a couple of weeks earlier to keep Monday night free, I thought we might be going on a military camp!