ENGLAND 38 SCOTLAND 12

ELLIOTT Whitehead dug England out of an ugly hole on Saturday but this was not a performance that gave Australia much, if anything, to worry about.

Scotland have made undeniable progress in recent times and long-serving head coach Steve McCormack has fashioned a competitive, well-organised and highly-motivated side.

Nevertheless, an England side packed full of NRL-based players and Super League’s finest talent should have had few problems seeing off the Bravehearts.

Yet it was Scotland who posed all the early questions and their vibrancy harvested tries for Kane Linnett and Matty Russell, putting them 8-0 up after 26 minutes.

England finally woke up and Whitehead’s two tries, both created by former Bradford team-mate Luke Gale, were converted to make it 12-8 at the break.

After a half-time roasting from head coach Wayne Bennett, England made their class pay after the restart as they ran in five more tries.

Gale admitted: “We started poorly. Everything we said we’d do we kind of did the opposite and built no pressure.

“We did a pretty good job second half but there will be a lot of hard work (needed) from here now to the Australia game. We’ve got to improve massively.”

There was a strong Bradford flavour to both teams, particularly in Scotland's pack.

Bradfordians Liam Hood, Adam Walker and Ben Hellewell all started and impressed, while Bulls forward Ben Kavanagh was named at loose forward.

Scotland regulars and former Bradford stars Danny Addy and Dale Ferguson were named at scrum half and second row respectively, with the latter grabbing a second-half consolation try for his team.

For England, ex-Bradford playmaker Gale lined up alongside George Williams in the halves and, although John Bateman was left out, the three Burgess boys all played and Whitehead took centre stage with his first-half brace.

In truth it was an underwhelming affair at the Ricoh Arena in front of a crowd of just over 20,000.

Led superbly by Danny Brough, once tipped to become the England stand-off, the Bravehearts dominated the opening 25 minutes and thoroughly deserved their 8-0 lead.

Linnett opened the scoring on six minutes, finishing off a slick handling move inside the left channel.

England had an equal share of possession but were unable to complete their sets and they fell further behind on 24 minutes when Warrington winger Russell produced a miraculous finish.

The Irvine-born Warrington player was dragged into touch by Jermaine McGillvary and Kallum Watkins, but still managed to reach out one-handed to plant the ball on the line, demonstrating enough evidence for video referee Ben Thaler to award the score, despite match official Gerard Sutton indicating no try.

It could have been worse for England, for Brough was wide with both conversion attempts, and they managed to post a couple of tries in the last 13 minutes of the first half.

Whitehead strolled through a gap from Gale's neat pass and then went over for a second after profiting from a fortunate ricochet from his former Odsal team-mate’s grubber kick.

Gale converted both to put his side into a 12-8 interval lead and they went on to boss the show in the second half.

Whitehead went close to completing his hat-trick and Sam Burgess was held up over the line before the floodgates slowly began to open.

Williams, growing into the game, made the running for Mark Percival's first try for his country and produced a sublime softly-struck kick for Hall to grab his 30th.

As Scotland began to fade, their last chance of pulling off a shock disappeared on 57 minutes when Brough was sin-binned for a professional foul.

Full back Jonny Lomax immediately took advantage of the extra man by working right winger McGillvary over unopposed at the corner and the Scots were still a man down when Sam Burgess' pass out of the tackle got Gale scampering away for his try.

Gale took his goal tally to four from six attempts to stretch his side's lead to 32-8, but Scotland were in no mood to roll over and Ferguson dived over for their third unconverted try.

England had the final say in stoppage time when second rower Liam Farrell went in for their seventh try.

England must now beat the Kangaroos by 12 points next Sunday to be certain of a place in the Anfield final.

Or, alternatively, if New Zealand win by less than 30 against Scotland in Workington on Friday, Bennett’s side simply have to beat the world champions by a solitary point.