ENGLAND coach Brian McDermott has addressed the unusual situation of going to a World Cup without a single member of the reigning domestic champions’ team.
Wakefield, 23-10 winners over Warrington on Saturday night, will not be represented when McDermott’s squad assembles in Perth at the end of the week.
“Look I’m really disappointed that the Wakefield boys aren’t available,” the coach said. “There’s nothing I could do or they could do. They were all booked in for operations at the end of the year.
“Jake Trueman in particular has had a fantastic year. Mike McMcMeeken has been enormous through the finals, same as Caleb Hamlin-Uele.
“And Tom Johnstone, he’s almost dragged his team through the grand final win, didn’t he?
“So every single one of them were in amongst being picked but I knew they were going to have operations and there was a strong likelihood that some of them were going to be unavailable.
“I got a message (on Monday) morning that they were all pulled out, all having operations, all unavailable due to injury or operations.”
From the side beaten 30-8 by Australia at Headingley on November 8 last year, there appears to be four players dropped: Hull KR winger Joe Burgess, Leeds centre Harry Newman, St Helens prop Alex Walmsley and Leeds utility Kallum Watkins,
Winger Johnstone’s surgery is on a knee and an ankle, forward McMeeken on his back, St Helens forward Matty Lees has a knee problem and Perth-bound prop Mikolaj Oleszki a shoulder issue.
