'England must attack better' admits Gareth Widdop
Sunday 8 November 2015 11:26, UK
Gareth Widdop accepts that England will need to perform better in attack when they face New Zealand in next weekend's series decider at the DW Stadium.
In Saturday's second Test at London's Olympic Stadium, the Kiwis won a low-scoring contest 9-2 in which Shaun Kenny-Dowall posted the only try early in the first half.
Although prop forward James Graham had a try controversially disallowed by the video referee, England struggled woefully to create chances which Widdop put down to having had to expend all of their energies on defence.
The third and final contest takes place in Wigan next Saturday and Widdop knows where the improvements have to be made: "To the boys' credit, we defended really well.
"At times we were under a lot of pressure on our own line but we kept turning up and that probably took its toll on us a little bit.
"It's always hard when you're defending so much and you're scrambling. You get into your attack and there is lack of energy I guess.
"But, in saying that, it's 1-1 and obviously do-or-die next week now and we're certainly confident. We've got a great team and we showed last week we can do it.
"If we can defend like we did tonight and just fix up our attack a bit, we'll be fine.
"Hopefully we can hold the ball a bit more and put them under a bit of pressure."
