Sunday 6 November 2016 12:51, UK
Ryan Hall says England's players deserved their half-time dressing-down from coach Wayne Bennett during Saturday's game against Scotland.
England eventually recovered from an awful start to get off the mark in the Ladbrokes Four Nations Series with a 38-12 win in their first-ever meeting with the Scots in Coventry, but it could not spare them from scathing criticism from Bennett.
The veteran Australian admitted there was little to cheer from his side's performance and suggested the players may have been guilty of complacency.
"They might have been reading the papers, thinking they just had to turn up and win," Bennett said. "Hall says the 66-year-old Brisbane Broncos boss made his feelings painfully clear during the interval at the Ricoh Arena.
"We got a bit of a telling-off at half-time," Hall said. "We were under clear instructions from Wayne Bennett before the game about our game plan and we went away from it.
"We thought we knew best and obviously we didn't. That sort of thing happens at club level at times. Sometimes players see things and they go for that a bit too much and then you start making errors and dropping ball.
"It's then a snowball effect, it starts getting worse and worse. That's why we struggled a little bit in the first half."
Scotland - comfortably beaten by Australia in their opener - took advantage to lead 8-0 after 25 minutes with tries from Kane Linnett and Matty Russell but Canberra second rower Elliott Whitehead crossed twice to nudge the hosts into a 12-8 lead at half-time.
"That was encouraging," Hall said. "I know we set off doing the wrong thing but we managed to turn it around.
"Scotland played some great stuff and scored two great tries and you couldn't argue with the score at that point."
Hall went on to notch his 30th try in as many appearances and Mark Percival, Jermaine McGillvary and Luke Gale also touched down during England's best spell of the game before Liam Farrell completed the scoring on the final hooter.
Points difference will decide the finalists if England beat Australia in the last round-robin game and Hall admits the stoppage-time try from Farrell, which went against his own instinct to kick a penalty for goal, could prove crucial.
"We knew the situation," Hall said. "If all goes to plan now, we'll be relying on points difference.
"There was a bit of a discussion about that and luckily the gamble paid off. I was one of the people who wanted to take two but Sam [Burgess], the captain, decided otherwise and it paid off."
Hall will now be hoping to take his prolific tryscoring form into the must-win match against the Kangaroos at the London Stadium next Sunday.
The Leeds winger scored two tries against Australia in the 2011 Four Nations Series at Wembley and was England's top tryscorer in the 2014 tournament after taking his tally against the Kangaroos to five in four matches but says he remains unfulfilled against the old enemy.
"I've never beaten Australia which is something I keep telling myself," he said. "It hurts.
"I might play well against them but the main thing is the result. We've never got that so we need to put that right on Sunday.
"We need quite a bit of improvement but we have to be confident in our ability because we had a decent second half I suppose. We have to play like that at the start."
