England angry over ball switch

13 April 2012

One of the first tasks for the England management when they arrive back at Gatwick Airport from their Florida trip will be to get their hands on the re-modelled Lincoln World Cup ball.  

Angry England coach John Kear discovered during the team's stay in Orlando's Disney World that the new eight-panelled match ball had been modified following complaints by Australia, who argued that it was too round and too heavy.

Tournament director Greg McCallum announced on Saturday, just hours before England played the United States in a practice match, that manufacturers Gilbert had made the balls lighter by 40 grammes and longer by 17mm.

"I was angry," admitted Kear. "We find out the week before the tournament starts that we've got to change the ball.

"It's bound to be a little different. Our kickers put loads of work in on this one and they've got to start all over again.

"It just gives us another motivation to work that bit harder to achieve our goals."

However, one England player happy with the change is Bradford winger Leon Pryce, who scored a hat-trick of tries with the old ball in his country's 110-0 success.

"I don't rate them," he said. "They're wide, more like a football than a rugby ball."

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in