ENGLAND confirmed their place in second place in the group with a 36-6 win over France in Perth to set up a quarter final clash with Papua New Guinea in Melbourne.

They got the job done in the first half, but he second half - in shades of the Lebanon game - was a scruffy, scrappy affair.

Saints centre Mark Percival marked his World Cup debut with a try and fellow clubmates James Roby Alex Walmsley had strong games in front of a 14,744 crowd at the Rectangular Stadium.

Roby’s performance once again gave Wayne Bennett something to think about ahead of the knock-out stages.

The powerful prop Walmsley gave the team plenty of oomph off the bench.

England were quick out of the blocks with three tries in the first eight minutes.

Gareth Widdop, playing full back, sliced through a back-pedalling French defence for the opening try after barely two minutes on the clock after good work from Kevin Brown in the build up.

Stefan Ratchford added the second in a move sparked by Roby’s dummy and pass in the build up.

James Graham powered over for the third after Mark Percival's offload near the line exposed the frailties in the French defence.

Brown and Widdop combined to send Percival over for a walk-in try on the quarter mark and John Bateman backed himself from close range England's fifth try of the first half.

A lapse in concentration allowed Benjamin Garcia to dummy his way over for a 34th-minute try for the French, which Lucas Albert converted.

McGillvary added to his tournament tally of tries to score straight from a scrum from Widdop’s pass within two minutes of the restart.

The Huddersfield wing collected Mike McMeeken’s pass to grab his second of the match after 64 minutes to wrap up the scoring.

So that is the tournament over for Saints' French skipper Theo Fages.