Hill hails England’s defensive effort

Warrington prop Chris Hill believes that England’s defence and work-rate was the key to securing a first Test triumph over New Zealand at Hull on Sunday.

Hill started the match against the Kiwis, his 12th cap for England, and formed part of an impressive front-row rotation for the home team.

The only Super League-based prop in England’s squad, the Wire man described the 26-12 victory in Hull as “a massive result”.

“In the first 10, 15 minutes they came out of the blocks and we knew they would,” he said.

“Next time we’ll learn from that. I thought we weathered the storm and then came [on] real strong.

“The half-time hooter came at the wrong time for us.”

England did not concede a point in the second half and Hill revealed defence was a priority for them.

“That’s what we focused on this week,” he said.

“If you give New Zealand time and space they’ll cut you to pieces. We had to cut their metres down and that’s what we did.

“We put a lot of onus on our defence.”

New Zealand have arguably the biggest and toughest forward pack in the world and the Wire front-rower enjoyed the challenge against them.

“It was really good. There’s some massive boys,” he said.

“I played against them in the Four Nations last year and in the World Cup.

“And we watch videos about them, and speak to some of the NRL boys.  So I was looking forward to it.

“Jesse Bromwich is one of the best props in the NRL.

“It was good to go up against him and good to get the win.”

England are now in the driving seat to claim a series win with the next Test in London.

But Hill said his team will need to play better on Saturday and expects the Kiwis to lift their performance levels considerably.

“We’ll have to learn again and we’ll have to improve,” the 27-year old added.

“New Zealand will improve tenfold, I think, they’ll look at their video and see what they did wrong. So will we.

“I know we won but there’s things in our game we can improve on.”