Kear hoping Wales can emulate football counterparts

Kear is coach of Wales who are putting the final touches to their preparations at a training camp in Brisbane.

They begin their campaign against Papua New Guinea in Port Moresby on Saturday before facing Fiji in Townsville on November 5. Their final group game is against Ireland in Perth a week later.

“Wales haven’t won a World Cup game since 2000,” said Kear. “They didn’t qualify for 2008 and had a bit of an indifferent tournament in 2013. We are obviously hoping to rectify that and if you do that you might get out of your group.

“I think you need two wins out of three. We’ve got a tough inter-group game against Fiji, when you look at their squad, and, obviously, PNG in PNG is going to be difficult.

“Ireland have got a strong squad as well so it is going to be difficult, but if you get the one win you never know what can happen.

“Should we get out of the group stages I think that would be the equivalent of Wales football getting to the semi-finals of the European Championship.”

Wales’ 24-man group includes just four Super League players f but Kear insisted: “It’s a good squad.

“Obviously, we are missing Ben Flower, Rhys Evans, Lloyd White, Gil Dudson and Ollie Olds through injury, but the only one who has played for us consistently for us out of those five is Ollie.

“He has played seven or eight out of the 10 since I’ve been in charge and he’s our half-back.

“What you’ve never had, you don’t miss. We will miss Ollie because he’s been one of the mainstays of the team.

“Finding a replacement half-back has been one of the worries we have had. That’s why there’s two ‘chances’ in the squad from Down Under in Matty Seamark, who was involved in 2013, and a young man in Josh Ralph.

“We will see if they can fill the boots of Ollie Olds.”

Kear continued: “We’ll nip into Papua New Guinea, play the game, come out and then it’s down to Townsville, on to Perth and if we get out of the group hopefully on to Melbourne to play England.

“It is a lot of travelling, but it’s all experience – I think there’s young men there who will absolutely have a ball.”

As for the tournament as a whole, Kear – coach of England in 2000 – expects Australia to retain the title.

“I think New Zealand are in transition,” he said. “I will be really disappointed from a rugby league perspective if England don’t get to the final.

“To me, looking at the rosters, England have the second-best team. But the thing that worries me is Cooper Cronk, Billy Slater and Cameron Smith – it is going to be their last World Cup and when it’s the last of anything with players of that quality they tend to go out in an all-singing, all-dancing manner. If they do that, you can’t see past an Australian win.”