Warrington Wolves winger Matty Ashton will come into the England side that will face France this weekend, replacing Wigan Warriors’ Zach Eckersley.

England had named a previously-unchanged 19 from the team that lost to Tonga last weekend. However, Brian McDermott has confirmed there will be one tweak, and it will come on the edges.

Ashton will make his first appearance in a Rugby League World Cup for England, as he is given an opportunity to impress against the French in a game England not only must win, but win convincingly to stand any chance of qualification for the semi-finals.

McDermott confirmed the change on Thursday morning and insisted it was not due to Eckersley’s performance against Tonga – but just his desire to ‘look at a few people’.

He said: “We’ve putt Matty Ashton on the wing and Zach Eckersley comes out of the 13. I thought Zach was good, he had a moment where he bobbled a ball on a high catch but I was impressed with how he handled that.

“He carried it in tough positions for us and I was impressed. But I need to have a look at a few people so Matty goes on the wing this week.”

McDermott insisted he has resisted the temptation for further changes having watched back the defeat to the Tongans last weekend and being heartened by what he witnessed.

“I woke up on Sunday (last week) and I didn’t feel as though there needed to be a lot of change,” he said.

“Matty and Zach have both had good seasons, they’re similar type of players in that they’ve ability to find the ground and their landing gear – and it’s like-for-like almost.

“This is the first hit-out we’ve had, the first time we came together. We had two field sessions together after the players had a very long journey to get to Perth. They flew over Perth and past Perth to Sydney, and then came back to Perth.

“The players were still feeling those levels of fatigue on the Monday they got here, so we only really had two proper sessions. That’s why I’m so confident with the cohesion that we had with that in mind.”