Ex Great Britain coach labels England star a “drama queen”

England have won their series against Tonga with a 14-4 win over Kristian Woolf’s men at the home of Huddersfield Giants this afternoon meaning that they can secure the series with a win over Tonga at the home of Leeds Rhinos – the newly renamed AMT Headingley Stadium.

The game was sullied by the weather in many ways with Matty Ashton scoring twice to give England a 14-4 win over the Tongans with Harry Newman, Harry Smith and Victor Radley also impressing.

But the game wasn’t without its controversial moments. From the start there were big calls for Jack Smith to make including on Victor Radley who suffered a late hit early on.

BBC commentator Matt Newsum said: “A late shot on Victor Radley and he certainly didn’t miss.”

Brian Noble added: “I think he’s committed, I don’t think can do much about it but he’ll have felt it. It’s right in his ribs where he’s exposed.

The big moments continued with a Tom Burgess shoulder charge on Fonua Blake. This time Newsum had a different take: “There was no wrap on the arms either, that could be a little bit dodgy come disciplinary time.”

Noble said: “Yeah, he’s got the call right. It was both late and a shoulder charge.”

The late hits kept on coming with one of Harry Smith which Newsum described as: “Katoa got cleaned out there by Smith.”

Penalties and errors were the undoing of Tonga as Tui Lolohea said on BBC: “We’re making two many errors, we’re giving the ball away on tackle one and tackle two and we need to clean it up.

On the Ruck he added: “Yeah it’s still causing a few errors, we’ve given them some six agains which we need to clean up.”

BBC was the home of the talking points with Shaun Wane labelling Tonga a “disgrace” after the game and Brian Noble also called Mikey Lewis a “drama queen.”

This was for an incident when Lewis was pushed by Will Hopoate near the ruck and Noble wasn’t a fan.

Lewis still had a few nice touches including an excellent run shortly after the incident. But Noble wasn’t impressed with this.

He is of course a former Great Britain boss and famously left out Kevin Sinfield in the 2004 tri Nations. He also used a player many have likened Lewis to in the shape of Danny McGuire quite sparingly that series after a 39 try season. This perhaps indicates his attitude to international rugby – get the tough stuff done. An attitude that served him well at Bradford Bulls.