[ad_1]
England’s George Williams has written a weekly column for BBC Sport during the Rugby League World Cup. Here he signs off for the campaign with the disappointment of a golden point semi-final defeat by Samoa that ended their hopes of glory.
Losing to Samoa was heartbreaking, but it was more than just the result. It’s the end of what we’d been striving towards.
It hurts to know that group – whether it’s because of injuries or retirement, players not being picked or out of form, or whatever it may be – will never play together again.
I felt like we had something special. But we just didn’t perform to our standards on the day.
If you play your best, you can kind of ‘wear’ your disappointment, but if you don’t play well and you lose it’s even more disappointing.
I’m not taking anything away from Samoa, who were a lot better than they were in game one when we thumped them up in Newcastle.
Our start was part of the problem on Saturday. They scored first which gave them the bit of confidence they needed.
I reckon if we’d scored first it might have brought a bit of doubt back in from that first game.
Defensively we were off, and we made too many errors.
I think we were ill-disciplined, Samoa are a great team with great individuals but we gave them a hand a fair few times in the game, we gave them some easy outs – and they’ve got too many good players for that. They stung us.
Fighting back, only to lose it
Looking back, we kept coming back at Samoa, even late on. We were 26-20 down in normal time and found a way to level it up somehow, but in golden point that was where we shot ourselves in the foot.
We made two errors in our own half, to give them opportunities. We did well to charge the first drop goal down, but then made another error. Stephen Crichton nailed the drop goal and we were out.
So we kind of got what we deserved. They completed their sets in golden point and we didn’t. As much as it hurts, they were the better team on the day.
Crichton was too deep for anyone to get anywhere near him. I was just pleading for it to miss. The kick, though it was probably a second or two, felt like 10 seconds from my angle. It felt like a lifetime, it was horrible.
As soon as he put his hand up and jumped up to celebrate, I instantly felt sick, because you put everything into it, all that time and effort.
Not just this six-week period, but your whole life. This is what you dream of and work towards, winning a World Cup.
The Samoa players were good after the game, they said some nice things to me and to some of the other boys too.
I wished them luck and told them I hoped they won the thing now!
It’s hard to process it that quick, but they were really good.
They celebrated like they should, but once they saw us on the floor, head in hands, they were over to console us and wished us all the best.
I saw my family – missus, my mum, my sister and my grandad – in the crowd after the game. I felt like crying when I hugged them, and they looked heartbroken for me.
You feel like you’ve let them down, and that’s natural. They don’t think that, they’re proud as punch.
But I felt that for everyone in this country. Like we’d failed.
Anyone who follows this sport would have felt gutted after the game.
Emotions within a tight group
It’s so devastating to us as a whole group, because this was the last chance saloon for some of the lads who possibly won’t play for England again. It was a first opportunity for others.
It was a tough changing room, with some emotional blokes. Everyone knows how tough rugby league players are, so to see people crying you know how much it means to them.
It’s still pretty raw and sad now, but you’ve just got to crack on.
There was a speech, Waney [Shaun Wane] spoke and thanked everybody. He’s a tough bloke but he’s in tears too. You know how passionate he is, and he was upset. Everyone had dreams and aspirations and they were shattered that day.
Sam Tomkins spoke and thanked all the staff – we couldn’t have had a better environment, we had everything we needed.
He said we were treated like superstars, which we were. He took it out of their hands and said the reason we’ve not won the World Cup is because of us, not you. They’d given us every device or solution or whatever it may be from physio, treatment, recovery, food.
Everybody just got around each other and gave each other a hug.
We came back to Manchester on the bus, which felt a particularly long journey. We went out on Saturday night as it would be the last time this group would enjoy each other’s company and then had a few more beers on the Sunday.
You build relationships in moments like that, because a lot of what we do in a camp is serious, so it was good to get a beer, relax and not talk about rugby.
Ready for a rest, albeit a week early
I started preseason last year on 14 November, so I almost did a full year of rugby league. I managed to get a week off before we got into England camp, but it’s not much rest.
I’m going to chill with my missus and my little daughter, and we’ll go away at the end of December.
While the game did break my heart, I came back to a healthy missus and daughter which gives you a different perspective.
The next World Cup is in three years, which will be perfect for the likes of our younger players – such as Kai Pearce-Paul, Dom Young and Jack Welsby. They’ll be even better for this experience. We will lose some senior blokes through retirement, so we will see what happens.
But I’ll look back with good memories on this tournament.
I will be watching the game on Saturday, but I’ll definitely be wishing I was playing.
