England boss considers changes, admits 'we didn't give ourselves a chance' in Ashes Test loss v Australia
Downbeat boss Shaun Wane admitted England “didn’t give ourselves a chance to win” the first Ashes Test against Australia.
England were beaten 26-6 in their first meeting with the Kangaroos since the 2017 World Cup final, after trailing 8-0 at half-time. Wane’s side competed well in the opening quarter, but made a string of mistakes and were ruthlessly punished once Australia got their game together.
NRL Grand Final man of the match Reece Walsh bagged a brace of tries from full-back and second-rower Angus Crichton also crossed twice. England’s lone touchdown came late on, through St Helens’s former Castleford Tigers hooker Daryl Clark.
There were no excuses from Wane, who accepted his team were outplayed. In his post-match press conference, the coach admitted: “I don’t think we gave ourselves a chance to win. It wasn’t close really, they were the best team - no question about that. It hurts a lot. We were desperate to put our best show on and we didn’t do that.”
The second Test is at Everton next Saturday, with Leeds Rhinos’ AMT Headingley staging the final match of the series a week later. England, who haven’t won the Ashes since 1970, have a mountain to climb to avoid a second successive whitewash - all be it 22 years apart - but Wane insisted: “The things we did wrong are easy fixes.”
Pointing the finger at “the way we ended our sets”, he said: “We made line breaks and didn’t score, they made a break and scored. They were clinical and showed why they are the best team in the world. They need to see the best of us next week, that’s the beauty of three Tests. We did things today I didn’t think we were capable of. They outplayed us and out-kicked us and that’s an area where we’re normally strong. It’s an easy area to fix, but it has a huge effect.”
The coach refused to rule out changes for next weekend’s rematch. Leeds prop Mikolaj Oledzki was 19th man while centre Harry Newman and back-rower Kallum Watkins were among the players left out of the team at Wembley. Full-back AJ Brimson and scrum-half Harry Smith are others who will be hoping for a call up and Wane said: “I’ve got a strong 24 - that’s the whole point of having a 24. I'll be looking at everything. Every single position will be analysed and we’ll be obsessed with trying to get a win.”
The final two games are sold out and a crowd of 60,812 turned up at Wembley, which is a record for a Test match in this country. “It makes me even sadder hearing that,” Warne added. “We wanted to make them proud - we wanted to challenge Australia so badly, that’s why I’m so upset.
“The only thing in our mind now is us being the winners at Everton. We have to win. We’ll dust ourselves off - this will hurt the boys but we’ll get in the video room and do some work."