England boss Wayne Bennett admits it is like starting again against France

But he has already seen some quality from the new faces he has met for the first time.

The national boss leads his side into battle when England face France tomorrow.

However, he will be without 12 of his squad that went so close because of injuries to people including Sam Burgess and international retirements.

The likes of Tom Johnstone, Jamie Shaul and Reece Lyne will make their debut but all that means Bennett has to get going again rather than build on the Brisbane near miss.

“This is the start of a new stage for us,” he said. “With 12 players from the World Cup missing for one reason or another, we’ve got to go back and start behind the eight ball a bit rather than continue the momentum we had.

“If they were available, we could’ve continued to build on that but we’ve just got to take one step back at the moment and build again from there.

“There’s plenty of quality, even though there are some quality players missing. For us it’s about the 2021 World Cup here so there are some players we can develop.

“I’ve been pretty impressed with a couple of the new ones.

“From the World Cup there’s 10 who are missing through injury and another couple who are out of form, that’s 50 per cent.

“I like working with new faces but I like working with old ones too as they know how to get the job done."

England then face New Zealand in a three-Test series and Bennett believes their performance in defeating Australia was a much better reflection of their quality than their awful World cup quarter-final exit.

However, he admits things are up in the air for 2019, both for England after their mid-season Test plans in Denver collapsed and Great Britain as talks over their tour continue.

After saying he ‘loved’ the Super League Grand Final between Wigan and Warrington, he added: “I’m disappointed the Denver Test won’t happen, we can’t miss out on a mid-season Test, it’s important to us – really important.

“I see New Zealand have positioned themselves to play Tonga, so I need to speak to Kevin Sinfield to find out what’s really going in.

“We need that mid-year Test, it’s helped us enormously. I’ve got a couple of mixed messages on the Great Britain tour too, I only know we’re heading to one or both of New Zealand and Australia.

“But the international game is going in the right direction.”

ENGLAND TEAM TO PLAY FRANCE: Shaul; McGillvary, Lyne, Percival, Johnstone; Connor, Myler; Graham, Hodgson, T Burgess, Whitehead, Holmes, G Burgess. Interchange: Sutcliffe, Mulhern, Thompson, Milner.

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