'Devastated' England coach Shaun Wane 'couldn't care less' about own future after Ashes loss v Australia
England coach Shaun Wane insists he is more concerned about avoiding an Ashes whitewash than his future with the national side.
Wane, who has been in charge since 2020, was left “devastated” after his team were beaten 14-4 by Australia in the second ABK Beer Test at Everton’s Hill Dickinson Stadium. The result, following England’s 26-6 loss in the Wembley opener, means Australia have retained the Ashes with one game still to play.
It is their 14th successive Test series win against England and next Saturday’s fixture at sold-out AMT Headingley is a dead rubber. Attention will now begin to focus on who leads England into next year’s World Cup, but asked what the defeat could mean for his own future, Wane vowed he “couldn’t care less”.
Speaking in his post-match press conference, the former Leeds player said: “I’ve not thought about that. The only thing I’m thinking about is how the players perform and we have to finish the series 2-1. I don’t want to finish the series 3-0 and that’s my obsession. Whatever happens with me, I couldn’t care less.”
Roared on by a 52,000 capacity crowd, England took the game to Australia and went in at the break all square, with Harry Smith booting two penalty goals to cancel out similar efforts from Nathan Cleary. Wane’s men were the better side before half-time, but a series of missed chances came back to haunt them as two tries in five minutes, by Cameron Munster and Hudson Young, ensured it was the visitors’ day.
It was an improvement on England’s performance in the opening game a week earlier, but Wane was too disappointed to take any consolation from the loss. He reflected: “I was proud for the majority of the game; I thought for 70 minutes we were good, but the switch off 10 minutes after half-time hurt us immensely.
“The first try was soft and shouldn’t be scored in a Test match. We did a lot of good things, just not enough. They’ve won it, we haven’t and it hurts. My assistants will think we’ve improved, but my overriding thought is we got beat. I’m so disappointed - it hurts that one.
“The players had a dig, but I’m so disappointed with that period after half-time which cost us dearly. I’m just really really hurt at the moment. We need to defend better and I don’t feel like those tries should have been scored in a Test match. Fair play to Australia, it’s no detriment to them, they turn up and they’re ruthless and we weren’t, but defensively, we can and should do better.”
It might have been a different story had England managed to turn pressure into points in the opening 40. “I wanted to see more thrown at them,” Wane added. “They defended really well. I was pleased with that first half; we had a lot of ball, but the main thing is I wanted us to build pressure, which we didn’t do last week. We did that this week, but it’s just a bit of detail in our attack.”