Shaun Wane vows England have fire in their bellies after Wembley 'hurt' with motivation clear
England boss Shaun Wane insists his side have fire in their bellies to show the world just how capable they are after underperforming in their defeat to Australia in the opening Ashes Test at Wembley.
England went down to a 26-6 defeat to back-to-back World Cup winners Australia in the opening Test of the Ashes series at Wembley Stadium on Saturday in front of a 60,000-strong crowd – a record attendance for an Ashes game on British soil.
Wane has made no secret of his views that his side undersold themselves under the famous Wembley arch, and he insists there is fire in the bellies of his players as they aim to show the world what they are capable of in the next two Test matches in Liverpool and Leeds.
"It does a bit, yeah,” Wane said when asked if the Wembley defeat has put fire in their bellies and whether it fuels their motivation to show everyone just how good they are.
"You are right, people in the room do know what our players are capable of, the NRL people don’t yet, and that hurts me, I’ll be honest with you, it does hurt. But I’ll feel a lot better on Saturday if we really have a go at them, attack the way we can attack, and defend as physical as possible, which we didn’t do last weekend."
Wane admits the playing group and staff had some open and honest discussions in the aftermath of their opening Ashes defeat, with the side heading back to their Manchester training base immediately after the game.
"Not good,” Wane said of the coach journey back up north. “It was a lot of upset – staff and players – it was a painful journey home, but I wanted it to be, and the players wouldn’t want it any other way.
"The players are hurting, they know they under-performed. If two teams were going at it – we played well, they played well – then I would be sort of okay about it if we’d lost, but the fact that we were at a six out of 10 is so disappointing, and that journey home was about six out of ten.”
England were well and truly in the contest during the opening quarter before Australia steered clear in the second half, but Wane admits his side ‘need to be better in so many areas’.
"I do stand by the performance, just not being good enough,” Wane reflected. “We all know the first try was dubious and that would have changed things going in at half-time, but it wasn’t to be.
"My overriding thought process is we just weren’t good enough, the absolute best team won, and that hurts badly because we’ve looked forward to this Test for a long time, and we just didn’t turn up.
"We did some good things. We made three or four line breaks and didn’t score (whereas) they were ruthless. When they made a line break, they scored.
"That can change this week. You know what international rugby is like, it can change, and I’ve got some really good players in my team, so it could be very different this week, but we need to be better in so many areas.”