Steve McNamara believes England are prepared for New Zealand Maori
Be careful what you wish for, you might just get it.
England prepare for the Gillette Four Nations series warm-up game in Auckland on Saturday against New Zealand Maori. The hope is that the Maori will provide a proper test before England open the tournament in Wellington against New Zealand on October 23rd.
Previous touring sides have come into the internationals with a preparation against weaker opposition but Steve McNamara, the England coach, is happy enough with the state of his squad going into the Maori match: “We’ve put a programme in place to make sure we’re in the best possible shape for Saturday,” he said. “We want to perform, blow a lot of cobwebs away. Hopefully we’ll do that, have a really positive performance. The players are looking in pretty good shape but it is a long time since they’ve played for some of them. The team that’s going out on Saturday night have not played together so I wouldn’t expect it to be pitch perfect.”
The Maori should fulfil their half of the bargain with the inclusion of Lewis Brown and Sam McKendry, the forwards, from the New Zealand squad, to a team that also has Rangi Chase, of Castleford Tigers, and Jeremy Smith, of Salford City Reds, at half back and Weller Harauki, of Crusaders, in the pack.
Adrian Morley, the England captain, believes that the quality of the opposition in this game will be vital before England take on New Zealand. “We’ve been pretty low-key at the start of the week, just getting over the jet lag,” he said. “But the last two days we’ve really stepped up the training and the preparations are going very well. It’s important that we get not only, hopefully, a win but a really good performance.
“There’s three players in the Super League and the rest of the boys are from the NRL and I think a couple of the boys are from the Kiwi squad going to play as well. So I think it’s close to an international side - I think it’s going to be stronger than Wales and France - so it’s going to be a tough one.
“We feel, in tournaments gone by, we’ve been a little bit underdone - especially in the first game. This game is going to be very physical and just what we need.”
The England full squad is: Gareth Widdop (Melbourne Storm), Tom Briscoe (Hull FC), Michael Shenton (Castleford Tigers), Ryan Atkins (Warrington Wolves), Ryan Hall (Leeds Rhinos), Kevin Brown (Huddersfield Giants), Sam Tomkins (Wigan Warriors), Adrian Morley (Warrington Wolves, capt), James Roby (St Helens), Darrell Griffin (Huddersfield Giants), Gareth Ellis (Wests Tigers), Sam Burgess (South Sydney), Sean O'Loughlin (Wigan Warriors), Luke Robinson (Huddersfield Giants), Eorl Crabtree (Huddersfield Giants), Joel Tomkins (Wigan Warriors), Ben Westwood (Warrington Wolves), Ben Harrison (Warrington Wolves), Leroy Cudjoe (Huddersfield Giants).
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