Sinfield concedes lack of intensity is hosts’ concern

It must be a concern that the national side is in such a state just when they should be fine-tuning towards the crucial latter stages of the tournament.

The Leeds Rhinos stand-off did not hide his dismay after a 34-6 quarter-final win over France that left more questions than answers.

“We’re disappointed with what we’ve dished up,” said Sinfield. “A win’s a win and we’re through to the World Cup semi-finals, but we need to be a whole lot better.

“We lacked intensity. We were a little bit off from what we’ve been in the group stages.

“Hopefully, it’s a kick up the backside. Thankfully, that performance wasn’t in the semi because we would have probably copped a heavy scoreline against us.

“We’ve a whole host of things to fix up and I’m sure we’ll be a whole lot better next week. We have to be.”

England will face New Zealand at Wembley on Saturday in the first part of a double-header with Australia tackling Fiji in the other last-four encounter.

The dominant Kiwis have eased through with some scintillating football while the hosts have only managed to deliver 20-minute spells of their best so far.

“We can’t do that next week, we need to put an 80 together,” insisted Sinfield.

“We know how well-drilled the Kiwis are and what a great side they’ve looked so far.

“I don’t think they’ve a weak link. It’s a tough proposition in front of us, but we’ve got it within our squad to be good enough.”

After surprisingly going behind against France, England inflicted most of their damage in a devastating spell of four tries in 17 first-half minutes which pointed at the potential they do possess before they lost all cohesion.

Sinfield added: “I think the positive is we won.

“Another is we kept France to six points. We were making a whole load of errors, but we’ve been able to defend it.

“Whether we’d be able to do that next week, I’m not sure. We certainly can’t cough that much ball up.”

Saturday will offer Sinfield – who has endured wretched luck in club colours at Wembley with three Challenge Cup final defeats – a chance to lay some ghosts to rest. But the 33-year-old maintained: “It’s not about me, is it? It’s about England getting the win. Hopefully we can be good enough.

“I’ll really look forward to it. I enjoyed coming down this time and watching the Challenge Cup final. Hopefully, I got rid of some demons there.

“The venue is really irrelevant. We need to go there and perform and give it our best shot.

“I don’t think we’ve quite seen the best of us yet and there will be no better stage to do it.”

England coach Steve McNamara described his side’s performance as “sub-standard” and echoed his captain’s sentiment.

“The second-half error count was one of the highest I’ve seen and the harder we tried the worse we got,” he offered.

France chief Richard Agar said: “We pulled them apart a few times but weren’t good enough to finish them off.

“Pride and courage can only take you so far.”

The Wakefield Trinity coach has not yet spoken to the French Federation about continuing in the role, but would be happy to do so if offered the chance.