Lee Radford reveals “social media stick” during the Rugby League World Cup

Almost every Englishman as devastated when Stephen Crichton’s golden point drop goal sailed through the posts at the Emirates Stadium in the Rugby League World Cup semi-final to end England’s hopes of ending a 50-year wait for World Club glory.

However, there was one Englishman who was delighted when Samoa broke the country’s hearts and that was Castleford Tigers boss Lee Radford who was acting as Samoa assistant coach during the tournament.

Speaking recently, the Tigers boss revealed that his competitiveness made it so that he wasn’t sentimental about England’s exit.

“Honestly the competitiveness in me far overweighed the sentiment in me to English rugby league, I was ecstatic as anyone especially after the first game and the stick I got,” he then went on to reveal that he got a lot of stick on social media.

“There were some things on social media like ‘it’s only taken Radford a few days to ruin Samoa’s defence.’ When that happens and you turn it on your hand, you have a bit of a smile.”

On England, he said:

“Andy Last is in the same office as me and we travel down together, we speak about it a lot. England got beat by an incredible team, in an incredible game in an incredible situation.

“They didn’t get an awful lot wrong, they just didn’t take their opportunities. Not much went wrong for them, they were just against a very good team.”