John Bateman powers in to seal England win over Combined Nations All Stars

With the end goal of the World Cup just four months away, nobody will be getting too carried away with this mid-season victory: least of all Shaun Wane. The England head coach is a firm believer in keeping his squad grounded, but this was still an impressive workout from his squad against a Combined Nations All Stars squad who had been victorious against England this time last year.

Wane has stressed his belief that the delay of the World Cup from last year to this autumn will only benefit his young squad. This was a result and a performance that suggests he may be right. With key players to come back from injury and his Australia-based heavyweights playing in the NRL unavailable for this Test, it is clear there are still several more gears for this squad to go through.

Nonetheless, the majority of the players who were on show here will have given Wane some food for thought over the next four months, with just one more warm-up game against Fiji to come before the World Cup begins against Samoa at St James’ Park in mid-October. “Overall, I thought there was more good than bad,” Wane said in typically demanding fashion afterwards.

“There are areas we can improve on but we did some good things. We were a bit clunky but we deserved the win. There are areas we can be better at, but if we’d won 80-0, I’d still want us to improve on things.” Last year’s defeat to the Combined Nations All Stars left a bitter taste in the mouth of Wane, who stressed the importance of victory here as a key step on the road to the World Cup.

His side were much the stronger of the two, and from the minute Jake Wardle marked his Test debut with a try after ten minutes, the hosts looked to be in control of the outcome. Wardle was one of several fringe