Shaun Wane delivers honest assessment of England's Ashes campaign after whitewash defeat to Australia
England coach Shaun Wane admitted his wide ‘weren’t good enough for long enough periods’ after Australia completed a 3-0 Ashes series whitewash on English soil.
The series, billed as a test of England’s progress under Wane, ended in disappointment, with the hosts unable to match Australia’s intensity or execution across the three Tests.
Speaking after the final Test, a 30-8 defeat at a sold-out AMT Headingley, Wane delivered an honest post-Ashes reflection.
“I think we’ve not played well enough for long enough periods against a really good team,” Wane said.
"This is a different challenge against a team that is going to ask you questions continually for 80 minutes, and we couldn’t do it for long enough periods.”
The defeat marks a 3-0 whitewash for England in the first Ashes series in 22 years, and it leaves plenty for Wane and his staff to ponder ahead of next year’s Rugby League World Cup, which takes place in Australia and Papua New Guinea.
“On reflection, I need a few weeks on that one,” Wane said. “It was a bit unknown for us to be honest – we’ve not played them for decades, and it was very unknown from our point of view.
“But to lose 3-0, I feel so gutted for the players and will reflect really hard on what we’ve done – the squad we picked, the style of play we had, how hard we trained. Everything will be reflected on and analysed from within, but I was genuinely optimistic when we went into this series, and it’s been a real, real test for us, this.”
Wane admits he and the RFL will conduct a debrief and review in the coming weeks of what went right in the series, what went wrong, and how they can improve ahead of next year’s World Cup in the southern hemisphere.
Wane’s accountability was laid bare, insisting he’ll be the first to question his own decisions during the review process.
"That’s the first thing I look at,” he said. “Everything is about what I’ve done – the team I’ve picked, the squad, the style of play, the game plans, the GPS – everything is about me first, and that’s what I’ll be doing in the next few days.”
England’s attack came under scrutiny after scoring just two tries across the three Tests, but Wane insisted it wasn’t a cause for concern, more so the execution of it.
“In the first game at Wembley, we made three or four clear-cut breaks we’d normally convert, and it was a freak play from their players to stop that,” he explained.
"We are creating opportunities, so it’s not a major stress. I’d have loved to have scored more tries, but we can easily fix the way we attack, and I thought that was not a major worry for us.”
Wane stood by his selection decisions he made in his 24-man squad before a ball was kicked.
When asked if he could change anything about the selections he made looking back, Wane replied: “No. It’s easy in hindsight, we can all sit back (and analyse), but I had to pick the squad beforehand and I’m okay with that.”
Wane is contracted with England through to the World Cup, which gets underway in less than a year.