Saturday 28 October 2017 07:35, UK
Jermaine McGillvary says England have the strength in depth to cope without the influential Sam Burgess.
Burgess went off with a knee injury five minutes before half-time as England lost their World Cup opener 18-4 to holders Australia.
Despite the loss of the talismanic South Sydney forward, England stayed in the game for the next 40 minutes and had chances to at least snatch a share of the spoils until the Kangaroos pulled away with eight points in the last five minutes.
McGillvary, England's man of the match in Melbourne, said: "That shows the character of the team.
"One of the biggest icons in rugby league goes off after 30 minutes and we still dug deep and worked really hard for each other. That shows where we're going as a team."
Burgess watched the second half in a knee brace from the dugout and was afterwards ruled out for three to four weeks with a medial ligament injury.
England coach Wayne Bennett effectively ruled Burgess out of the remaining group games against Lebanon and France and almost certainly the quarter-finals, but will be desperately hoping to have the former Bradford man back for a potential semi-final with New Zealand in Auckland on November 25.
England threatened to pull off a shock when McGillvary scored his fifth try in six Test appearances but they failed to ram home their early advantage and Australia pounced on their errors to run in two tries in eight minutes from second rower Matt Gillett and veteran full-back Billy Slater.
Any fears that the home side would then run away with the game quickly disappeared as Bennett's men pummelled the line, with desperate scrambling defence keeping out replacement hooker James Roby and left winger Ryan Hall.
Australian captain Cameron Smith, who equalled Clive Churchill's record of 35 consecutive appearances in the green and gold, eventually edged his side two scores in front with a penalty and, with England forcing their hand late on, centre Josh Dugan broke away for a try that gave the final score a flattering look.
Smith said: "It's what we expected. England are a very good side, we mentioned that in our preparation.
"All the talk of us being red-hot favourites, we never thought that at all. We knew that the English were very strong and they had great preparation for this game.
"The match was extremely important for both teams and it was always going to be a tight game. We played quite well in patches, but there's a couple of things we can certainly work on moving forward to our next game against France.
"We're really pleased with getting a victory against a very good side."
