England need win over Samoa after 78-0 Australia rout — SkimNews
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- Australia beat England 78-0 on Saturday in the Women's Rugby League World Cup, scoring 15 tries and leading 36-0 at half-time, with Jaime Chapman crossing twice in the opening six minutes.
- Stuart Barrow said the squad remains positive — "people don't want to go home" — while players who were at the humbling 90-4 loss to Australia in Las Vegas 19 months earlier told the changing room "this wasn't like Vegas".
- England opened the tournament with a 70-6 win over Wales, and Burrow urged the squad not to forget the effort areas and training habits that produced it ahead of the Samoa fixture.
- Samoa meet England in the winner-takes-all final Group A game in Wollongong at 6.45am GMT on Friday, where England need victory to finish second in Group A and reach the knockout stages; England travel from Perth for the match.
- Stuart Barrow called Australia "probably one of the best sporting teams in the world across all sports at the moment", saying the Jillaroos were "too quick, too skilful, and too fast" for his side, but credited England with competing for all 70 minutes.
- Newcastle hosts the opening semi-final on November 7, where Friday's winner meets the team finishing top of Pool B.
- England changed how they worked as a group after the Vegas defeat and brought in a younger group, which Barrow described as a "good learning curve" for a side still developing.
Why it matters: England face a single deadline — Friday's 6.45am GMT match in Wollongong — to finish second in Group A and reach the November 7 semi-final in Newcastle. After being outscored 15 tries to nil by Australia, Barrow's young group has to reproduce the effort that produced a 70-6 win over Wales to keep the campaign alive.
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