Gardner, McGuire left out

McGuire: surplus to requirements

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England coach Tony Smith has omitted St Helens winger Ade Gardner and Leeds stand-off Danny McGuire from his initial 19-man squad for Saturday's World Cup semi-final against New Zealand.

Both players missed last Saturday's final pool match, a 36-24 defeat to the Kiwis, but were expected to return for the knockout fixture against the same opponents at Brisbane's Suncorp Stadium.

Smith was unavailable for comment while media manager Andrew Whitelam said the management were still monitoring certain players and the squad could change before Saturday.

Apart from Gardner and McGuire, the other players left out of the official squad were St Helens prop Maurie Fa'asavalu, who has a broken hand, and Bradford duo Paul Sykes and Paul Langley.

Injury concerns

England are believed to have lingering injury concerns surrounding full-back Paul Wellens and stand-off Leon Pryce.

Wellens is battling ankle ligament damage and, if he fails to recover, Lee Smith would be likely to switch from wing to full-back.

In that scenario, Gardner would earn a reprieve and be handed the job of marking Manu Vatuvei, who scored four tries last Saturday.

If Pryce is still troubled by a rib problem, McGuire would be his natural replacement.

Ref request

Meanwhile, England have lost their bid to have a northern hemisphere referee in charge of Saturday's match, with Australian Shayne Hayne, who refereed their opening pool match against Papua New Guinea, given the job.

It means England will have had Australian referees in charge of all four of their matches in the tournament so far, with Tony Archer controlling their games against Australia and New Zealand.

A plea by Smith to World Cup referees' chief Mick Stone to have either Steve Ganson or Australia-born Ashley Klein, the Rugby Football League's two officials on the referees panel, fell on deaf ears.

"In the tournament manual drawn up prior to the tournament, it was agreed that appointments would be made on merit and, where merit permits, we would appoint on the basis of neutrality," said Stone.

England 19-man squad: P Wellens (St Helens), M Calderwood (Wigan), M Gleeson (Warrington), K Senior (Leeds), L Smith (Leeds), L Pryce (St Helens), R Burrow (Leeds), A Morley (Warrington), M Higham (Wigan), J Peacock (Leeds, capt), G Ellis (Leeds), J Jones-Buchanan, R Purdham (Harlequins), J Graham (St Helens), B Westwood (Warrington), J Roby (St Helens), K Sinfield (Leeds), J Wilkin (St Helens), G Hock (Wigan)