Leeds Rhinos' Kallum Watkins talks England World Cup 'honour', late call-up and must-win France clash
Leeds Rhinos veteran Kallum Watkins says he is honoured to be part of England’s World Cup squad, whether or not he gets to play.
The 35-year-old initially wasn’t selected to travel to Australia, but received a late call up when Morgan Smithies suffered an injury just three days before last Saturday’s opener against Tonga. He has been named as 20th man, which is first reserve, for this weekend’s game against France.
Watkins, who was ever-present for Leeds this year, insisted: “I’m very grateful for the opportunity just to be a part of the camp. It tops off my career, which is coming to an end pretty soon. To put on the shirt would be nice; whether that happens or not I’m not sure, but I’ll always do my best for my team-mates in any capacity to make sure they are well prepared.”
Watkins made his World Cup debut in 2013 when England reached the semi-finals before suffering an agonising last-gasp defeat by New Zealand at Wembley. He featured in the 6-0 loss to hosts Australia in the final four years later and was a member of the England side beaten in golden-point extra-time by Samoa at the last-four stage in 2022.
“If I get an opportunity, I'll take it with both hands,” he said of the current tournament. “I’ve had a long journey with England and know for sure it’s my last one. To have the opportunity to come here is a bonus for me and something I’m not taking for granted.”
Watkins conceded his call up was totally unexpected. “I was sat at home at 6am when I got a message asking me if I was free to talk,” he recalled. “I was quite shocked, but really excited at the same time.
“It came out of the blue - I wasn’t on standby or anything like that. Luckily enough, we were looking to go away at the end of October, but didn’t book it. I got the phone call and the next day I was on a flight.”
The 30-12 defeat by Tonga was England’s first game under coach Brian McDermott. Despite that result, Watkins believes his former Rhinos boss is a good appointment. He reflected: “He always said he wanted a point of difference and we’d have to play a different way to succeed.
“Along the way you are going to have teething problems at times. It will take time; unfortunately, we haven’t had enough time on the field during the year so it was always going to be difficult. We still believe we could have won the game against Tonga - we showed a lot of promise, but it’s the World Cup and we know there’s expectation. We’re all disappointed with that result.”
The opening defeat left England’s hopes of progressing to the semi-finals hanging by a thread. They need to beat France and Papua New Guinea and hope other results go their way and Watkins admitted: “We still genuinely believe we can do something special, but it’s not in our hands now.
“We’ve just got to focus on what we need to do. The first thing is to play well this weekend against France and the boys are right up for that. I think it’ll help that we had the game last week and we’ll get better from that.”
Though it’s possible for and against could decide who progresses, Watkins stressed England can’t afford to chase points in their final two fixtures. He vowed: “We’ve got to stick to the fundamentals of the game.
“The boys believe in the system and we already know Brian does. We’ve got to keep following what we are doing.
“We know the position we’re in, but just have to keep focusing on winning the game and then the next one on top of that. Then we’ll see what happens.”