Great Britain 42–0 Papua New Guinea — World Cup Table, 1985–1988 Rugby League World Cup
24 Oct 1987 · Central Park, Wigan, England · Attendance: 9,121
Data last verified: 11 August 2026.
World Cup Table, 1985–1988 Rugby League World Cup: Great Britain 42–0 Papua New Guinea, at Central Park, Wigan, England on 24 Oct 1987.
Scorers
| Great Britain | Tries: Edwards (2); Hanley; Lydon; Gregory; — not identified in sources found (remaining ~2 tries needed to reconcile with 42-0) Goals: Stephenson (7/7) |
| Papua New Guinea | No scorers recorded. |
Teams
| Great Britain | Papua New Guinea | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Steve Hampson | Fullback | Dairi Kovae | 1 |
| 2 | Des Drummond | Wing | Kepi Saea | 2 |
| 3 | David Stephenson | Centre | Lauta Atoi | 3 |
| 4 | Joe Lydon | Centre | Bal Numapo (c) | 4 |
| 5 | Phil Ford | Wing | Arnold Krewanty | 5 |
| 6 | Shaun Edwards | Stand off/Five eighth | Darius Haili | 6 |
| 7 | Andy Gregory | Scrum half/Half back | Tony Kila | 7 |
| 8 | Kevin Ward | Prop forward | Joe Tep | 8 |
| 9 | Paul Groves | Hooker | Roy Heni | 9 |
| 10 | Brian Case | Prop forward | Ati Lomutopa | 10 |
| 11 | Paul Medley | Second row | Mathias Kambra | 11 |
| 12 | Andy Goodway | Second row | Bernard Waketsi | 12 |
| 13 | Ellery Hanley (c) | Loose forward/Lock forward | Arebo Taumaku | 13 |
| Substitutes | ||||
| 14 | John Woods | David Gauis | 14 | |
| 15 | Karl Fairbank | Mathias Kitimun | 15 | |
| Mal Reilly | Coach | Barry Wilson | ||
Match officials
| Referee | Francis Desplas (France) |
| Player of the match | — not identified in sources found |
Match report
Played during PNG's 1987 Kumuls tour of Britain, their first full Test-standard tour of the country. Great Britain fielded a team built heavily around the all-conquering Wigan side of the era, with captain Ellery Hanley moved from centre to lock and Joe Lydon switched from fullback to centre. Great Britain led 24-0 at halftime and cruised to a 42-0 win, comfortably their biggest winning margin of the World Cup Table cycle to that point. Shaun Edwards scored twice, with further tries credited to Ellery Hanley, Joe Lydon and Andy Gregory, while David Stephenson landed 7 goals from 7 attempts.
The scorer list does not fully reconcile with the 42-0 final score: the identified tries account for only 5 of the roughly 7 required, with two tries' scorers not identified in sources found. The result confirmed PNG's status as the weakest side in the pool during this tour.
Sourcing caveat: RLP's own scoresheet for this match records only Shaun Edwards (2 tries) and David Stephenson (7 goals), which totals 22 points, not 42. A secondary source (Sky Sports) adds Hanley, Lydon and Gregory as further try scorers, bringing the identified total to 34 points -- still 8 points short. The scorer(s) of the remaining two tries could not be identified despite extensive searching; RLP's per-player match-log pages, which would likely resolve this, are blocked by that site's robots.txt.
Previous World Cup meetings
- 1985–1988 Rugby League World Cup (World Cup Table): Papua New Guinea 22–42 Great Britain
- 1989–1992 Rugby League World Cup (World Cup Table): Papua New Guinea 8–40 Great Britain
- 1989–1992 Rugby League World Cup (World Cup Table): Great Britain 56–4 Papua New Guinea