England crowned first-ever winners of the PDRL World Cup
Photo: Alex Whitehead/SWpix
England became the first-ever Physical Disability Rugby League world champions after beating New Zealand in the PDRL World Cup final on Sunday.
They beat the Kiwis 42-10 at the Halliwell Jones Stadium in Warrington to clinch the PDRL World Cup after an unbeaten campaign.
Warrington has wholly staged the PDRL World Cup, with Victoria Park hosted the group stages.
Wales and Australia were the other two teams in the tournament, with Wales denied their place in the final by a technical infringement. This breach was in regard to the ability classification level of the players on field; in PDRL, ability is divided into three categories, and denoted by specific sock colours. There can be only a specific number of players per sock colour on the field at a time. The Welsh coach attributed the infraction of this rule to “miscommunications across the board”.
Wales beat Australia 32-18 in the third-placed play-off at Victoria Park on Sunday afternoon.
England and New Zealand took centre stage at the Halliwell Jones Stadium, following on from Samoa’s huge win over France in the men’s World Cup.
England were 16-4 to the good at half-time and ran away with it in the second half to finish 42-10 winners.
England’s tries came from Nick Lynch, Scott Gobin, Sam Zeller, Tommy Pouncey, Adam Fleming and Nick Kennedy.
The PDRL clubs played four matches in eight days to become world champions.
Celebration tweets pour in for England after PDRL World Cup triumph
Congratulatory tweets poured in for the England team are their PDRL World Cup victory…
England and York player Grace Field tweeted: “Wonderful achievement.”
England and St Helens player Amy Hardcastle tweeted: “How awesome, well done!”
England’s official account tweeted: “Congratulations to England PDR:! Three more up for grabs for #EnglandRL…”
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