Rugby League World Cup

McNamara: France win our worst performance

ESPN staff

November 17, 2013

Despite victory over France, England endured an error-strewn performance © PA Photos

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England coach Steve McNamara has called for a huge improvement from his England squad ahead of their World Cup semi-final clash with defending champions New Zealand.

McNamara witnessed his side dump France out of the competition on Saturday, emerging as 34-6 victors from their quarter-final at Wigan's DW Stadium on Saturday.

However, despite seeing his team score four tries in 19 minutes, McNamara was far from impressed with the individual errors count and wants his players to use victory over France as a wake-up call.

"That was very, very scratchy, our worst performance of the tournament," McNamara told BBC Sport. "It was a substandard performance. We will need to be a whole lot better next week and we will be.

"In our previous three games we have shown how good we can be. But tonight, if we needed a reminder or a wake-up call, that was it.

"We need every player to contribute, to be good, but in the second half the error count was one of the highest I have seen. As a coach I could sense that we were not on the mark, we could not find our rhythm."

England face New Zealand in London on November 23.

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