By Mitch Phillips
LONDON (Reuters) -After a 22-year wait it was a huge anti-climax for England’s rugby league fans on Saturday as their team were blown away 26-6 by Australia, who underlined their position as the sport’s superpower with a totally dominant Wembley display.
Since England triumphed in 1970, Australia have won 13 successive series and England have not managed one on home soil since 1959.
They had hoped the “Wembley factor” might give them a flying start, with lots of media nostalgia this week looking back at famous victories there in 1990, 1994 and 1995 and a British Ashes record crowd of 60,812 in attendance.
Ultimately those three wins all proved false dawns but there was barely of chink of sunlight for the hosts on Saturday after they had held their own in a tight, scoreless opening 20 minutes
Two tries for the sport’s golden boy Reece Walsh and two for the impressive Angus Crichton had the Kangaroos cruising at 26-0 before Daryl Clarke’s late consolation gave England something to cling to ahead of next week’s second test at Premier League soccer club Everton’s ground.
“We undersold ourselves, but we can fix that this week,” England coach Shaun Wane said. “If you get the chance to score then you have to score and they were clinical. I thought our physicality was good, we made line-breaks but when you turn the ball over on tackle three and four that’s an issue at this level. We will be better next week.”
AUSTRALIA EXPECT BACKLASH
Australia’s Cameron Munster also said he expected a backlash.
“England played some good footy, there were a couple of times they made some dents, especially on fifth tackle,” he said.
“They probably executed a couple of bad passes. It could have been a different scoreline at halftime. They’re going to get better and we need to get better.”
Munster said he had loved the occasion as the sport’s big two got together for an Ashes series for the first time since 2003 – when Britain led late in all three games but lost them all by a single score.
“It’s been 22 years and you never know when your opportunity is going to come again,” he said. “Lots of great players never got the got the opportunity to play Ashes. I’ve been playing professionally for 12 years and never played against England. It’s pretty crazy.”
Munster also heaped praise on man-of-the-match Walsh, who backed up his two tries with two key early defensive contributions and lit up the stadium with a 70-metre burst at the start of the second half.
“He’s a special talent,” he said. “He’s only 23, so he’s going to get better, which is scary to see.”
Australia coach Kevin Walters agreed.
“He had a hand in a couple of tries with his football and his ability to get in between defenders so he’s a great asset of ours,” he said of the debutant.
Walters said the key to Australia’s performance was getting the players to gel quickly.
“They’re all great football brains and smart minds and they’re footballers, so I didn’t think it would be too big a job to get them together and get them to play the football that we need,” he said.
“There are still some areas where we can get better but I’m very happy with today’s performance.”
(Reporting by Mitch Phillips, editing by Ed Osmond)
