Kumuls crash
The National, Wednesday November 6th, 2013
PAPUA New Guinea’s quarter-finals hopes have been all but dashed.
Samoa trampled their way to a convincing 38-4 win in the Group B fixture at Hull’s Craven Park yesterday morning.
Adrian Lam’s side conceded seven tries to one in an error-riddled performance that was their 10th biggest losing margin at a World Cup.
Reaction to the loss in PNG has been predictable, with several in the rugby league fraternity calling for Lam’s head.
Lam, who coached PNG at the last World Cup in 2008, anticipated the response.
“We’ve got seven million people who were probably up watching this morning. They judge the boys pretty harsh on performance. I know everyone at home will be pretty disappointed. Probably, we’ll see our critics over the next couple of days and the next week or two,” Lam said.
Lam insisted PNG were not out of the running yet.
”We’ve still got New Zealand to go. All is not lost. We might win that to go through to the quarter-finals,” Lam said with a wry smile.
With PNG given little chance now of advancing to the top eight, Lam was already looking to the next World Cup.
“Although we wanted to do well here, the priority is that next (World Cup),” Lam said.