Former Super League champion Jon Wilkin has delivered England a stunning reality check after their Rugby League World Cup exit, declaring they were “overhyped”.
England put the rest of the competition on notice with a 60-6 win over Samoa to open their World Cup campaign and with that performance came high expectations.
They still pushed Samoa all the way in the semi-final but it was still not enough for Wilkin, who described them as “rubbish” while speaking to Sky Sports.
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“Everything (went wrong). They were rubbish,” Wilkin, who played 404 games for St Helens, said.
“Samoa started the tournament so badly and they improved, England started the tournament so well and when it got to the period that mattered, they produced a rank performance.”
Wilkin claimed England had been “overhyped” and even went as far as to suggest that he saw warning signs before the game had even began during the Siva Tau — Samoa’s traditional war dance.
“You saw facing-off against the Samoans pre-game and (for) some of them, it was like pure aggression coming out of the England players,” he added.
“Whenever I faced the haka or any of the cultural dance, I took it for what it is which is a beautiful insight into someone’s else culture. It’s not a threat, it’s not intimidating, and I thought England took it in the wrong way.”
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Wilkin even criticised England coach Shaun Wane for bringing in Ant Middleton, who climbed in 2018, as the team’s guest speaker ahead of the semi-final.
“They’d had Ant Middleton (former Royal Marines Commando) in the camp the night before,” Wilkin said.
“For me, it was overstimulated, overhyped and it translated into a sloppy performance. Players who have been playing well all tournament, produced their worst performance in the biggest game. It’s devastating for England and a big learning experience for a lot of young guys.”
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England coach Wane was not shying away from the disappointment of the semi-final performance in his post-game press conference, admitting he was “gutted” by the result.
“We were not good enough, the best team won,” Wane said.
“I’m gutted, absolutely wounded. I was never happy in that game, we were below our standards. There is some soul searching going on from us staff. The players have been great, I don’t doubt their effort.
“Samoa were the best team today. We didn’t do the right things at the right time and I blame myself.
“We have to be better, this is not good enough. I blame me. We have to be better, semi-final is not good enough. It was small details today that cost us dearly. They had better composure, we were just not good enough and on the biggest stage possible.
“We needed to do things that worked for us. We went away from things that worked for us.”
