England secured their first win of the Rugby League World Cup on Saturday with a comprehensive victory over France to keep their hopes of qualifying for the semi-finals alive.

Knowing they had to pile on the points in Perth, England duly obliged – with a 14-try rout to inflict France’s heaviest ever margin of defeat upon Laurent Frayssinous’ side.

There were plenty of talking points post-match too. Here’s everything we learned.

Mikey Lewis MUST start against Papua New Guinea

Every game situation is different, and every match will call for a different approach. But England need points against Papua New Guinea, and they’ll have a much tougher opposition against them next weekend in Wollongong.

So Mikey Lewis has to start from the off. He was magnificent here, picking apart a visibly exhausted French defence and stretching the contest with his running game in a way he does when he’s at his best for Hull KR.

England will need that creative spark again next weekend, knowing they’ll likely have to win by over 60 points to stand any chance of making it through.

As for who he replaces.. we’re not getting into that one. Argue amongst yourselves! But Lewis should be in the 13 that runs onto the field in Perth.

Jez Litten continues to attract attention

The noise from Hull KR is that Litten, quite frankly, isn’t really that interested in a move to the NRL anyway. Which is just as well because if he were, he’d likely be able to get a move pretty quickly.

The Rovers hooker was outstanding on Saturday. He is fully capable of playing 80 minutes or thriving as an interchange hooker and it was in the latter role which he excelled against the French. Introduced much earlier than last week, Litten was able to run riot and cause mayhem around the ruck to allow the likes of AJ Brimson, Harry Smith and George Williams to do their thing.

Litten’s performances in the Ashes last year led to a few NRL clubs taking note of him. If he continues like this next week, there is definitely going to be some interest in seeing if he can be tempted Down Under.

He is categorically good enough, that’s for sure.

Credit to Brian McDermott..

..who got his approach to the six-man bench absolutely spot on in Perth. While last week probably did call for more size against the Tongans – something England don’t have a lot of anyway with no Morgan Knowles, Matty Lees, Mike McMeeken, Morgan Smithies, the list goes on – here was about using spine players to wreak havoc.

Jack Welsby came on for Victor Radley at 13 and looked mightily handy and as we’ve discussed already, the introduction of Lewis and Litten was key, as was the timing of both.

McDermott is a very good coach who, given time, can potentially form this England group into something quite capable. Time is the one thing they don’t have in this World Cup though, and the debate about what happens to the national team next can wait for another day, but this was a strong showing from the coach, as well as the players.

He deserves credit for the game-plan he promised coming to the fore, and the approach he took in-game when you could see the French were there for the taking.