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Great Britain players must make amends for tour defeats in Papua New Guinea clash


It has been amazing to witness the reception Great Britain have had in Papua New Guinea and the genuine love for the sport by the local people.

It’s their national sport and you can see what it means to them to have the Lions playing here again for the first time in 23 years.

There is so much excitement and we’re expecting a sell-out crowd for our game on Saturday, so we need to perform well and win.

Our last result against New Zealand was disappointing and Wayne Bennett has made it very clear what the players need to do to improve.

They now need to go out and execute that. They know they are under pressure now, but pressure makes diamonds and I’m looking forward to seeing a great performance in a wonderful occasion for rugby league.

Great Britain are under pressure ahead of Saturday’s clash with Papua New Guinea

 

Our results have not been what we wanted on the tour but let’s not forget that this squad has had a lot of leadership ripped out of it.

We are missing Sam Burgess, Sean O’Loughlin, James Roby and Kallum Watkins, who are all seasoned internationals.

They all bring plenty to the table and any team that misses that calibre of players is going to struggle in terms of leadership and direction.

We have seen that a little bit, just like Australia have with the players they have lost – it’s not surprise that they’ve also been beaten.

Great Britain have missed the leadership provided by the likes of Sam Burgess

 

But our squad is extremely together and the players know where they’ve gone wrong in the three Tests and what is needed.

Out of our three performances so far, last week’s was probably our worst in terms of being clinical and disciplined.

New Zealand showed us how to do that and that’s how you win at this level – you need to be disciplined with the ball and not make errors.

You also have to realise that it can take 10 or 15 minutes to build pressure and it’s an area we need to improve.

New Zealand showed Great Britain how to be clinical and disciplined

 

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If we want to beat the Australians next year and win the World Cup the year after then we need to significantly improve that.

Some people say we don’t have enough strength in depth in positions like centre, but strength in depth has been an issue for years with Great Britain.

It was when I played. We had 12, 13 great players and you’d look at your bench and wonder if they could add anything, and beyond that we were struggling.

But I really believe we have got more strength in depth than we’ve ever had at the moment.





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