England coach Wayne Bennett acknowledged his team needs to improve their all-round performance after they defeated France 36-6 in Perth on Sunday night.
The English shot away to a 22-0 lead start inside 20 minutes but only managed two tries in the second half in a patchy performance.
"When they were good, they were good," he said of his team.
"It was the same result last week (against Lebanon). We scored six points last week, just 12 this week after laying a good foundation and finished a lot better than we did.
"The road ahead for us is going to be short if we don't get our two halves of football right. My major concern is with us right now. I haven't taken it much further than getting through today and we got through with no injuries which is good. We go away and play Papua New Guinea next week."
Bennett wants his team to earn the right to play a more attacking style of football than they showed tonight in the first half.
"We were just trying to play some structure and what we know would have worked for us," he said of England's expansive play at times.
"That was a benefit of doing the other things right first. It's not the benefit of just going out there and trying to play like that, so in the second half when it goes all wrong, we don't do the things we do in the first half that gave us the opportunity to play that football."
England face Papua New Guinea in Melbourne next week. The England coach admitted he didn't know a lot about the Kumuls' team but acknowledged their progress.
"I haven't really seen them play very much," he said.
"I've seen the state league and saw the (Queensland Cup) premiership this year. They're a good football team and they're doing their best all the time."
The winner of the England-PNG quarter-final will head to Auckland to face the winner of the Tonga-Lebanon quarter-final.
