England are in a really good position as they chased World Cup success.
Their stunning opening day win over Samoa has left them in pole position to top the group which should lead to a favourable quarter-final draw.
This week they will need to back that win up against France at Bolton and Shaun Wane has confirmed his selection plans for the game.
After beating Samoan, Wane confirmed that the seven who missed out on the clash against Samoa – Ryan Hall, John Bateman, Marc Sneyd, Andy Ackers, Joe Batchelor, Kai Pearce-Paul and Leeds Rhinos star and Dream Team prop Mikolaj Oledzki – would all play and Wane reaffirmed this yesterday when speaking to the press.
However this wasn’t always the case with the comfort enabled by that win over Samoa seeing Wane really test the depth of his squad: “It wasn’t always the plan. I felt comfortable after that win. It was tough, it was very difficult picking that team for Samoa. You look at the players I didn’t pick, they’re all in really good form. It wasn’t easy conversations that day when I told them they weren’t playing.
“I want to see how they go this week and see if our performance can improve.”
Nonetheless, he still expects his side to continue to improve: “I’m looking for a better performance. But that I mean, yes we’re playing a different team but there are certain standards that we put on ourselves as a team and as a group which we want to get better at.
“I think if we do that, we’ll go into the game very confident.”
