Wane haunted by benchmark set by Carney

Shaun Wane’s own words have come home to roost. In February 2020, the England rugby league head coach set a brutally high standard for himself. “If I don’t get to a World Cup final and win, it’s a disaster,” Wane said at the time. “We haven’t beaten Australia for a long time and I’m embarrassed by that. And if we don’t beat them, it’s on me.”

By his own measure, the two most important campaigns of his six years in charge have fallen short of that benchmark.

England’s home World Cup, played in 2022 because of the pandemic, was supposed to be the moment the sport reconnected with a wider domestic audience. The draw was deliberately kind: no Australia, no New Zealand until the final. All roads led to Old Trafford. Except, of course, the side didn’t make it there. The team lost in the semifinals to Samoa — a Samoan side they had blitzed in the tournament’s opening game. Many good judges felt it was a semifinal there for the taking. The hosts went in as favorites and came unstuck in a big way.

By Wane’s 2020 logic, not winning the final would have been a “disaster.”

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Not even reaching the final was a worse outcome.

A golden chance that slipped away

Fast forward to 2025 and Australia returned for the first Ashes series in years. It was another golden chance for the game on these shores to fire up the sporting public’s imagination. Instead, the Kangaroos left with a clean sweep and England barely left clutching the usual consolation prize of “effort.” Three defeats, three below-par performances, just two tries in 240 minutes of rugby league. If Wane was embarrassed in 2020 about not beating Australia in so long, he must be incandescent now.

One observer watched Reece Walsh sign autographs pitchside an hour after the final whistle on Saturday. The Australians, the team the English are told to love to hate, had won the hearts and minds of supporters over here.

England’s rugby league team is more than a collection of individuals sent out to win a game. They represent the sport. For whatever reason, the side admirably welcomed cameras into camp for a behind-the-scenes documentary yet appeared to be kept from the cameras, microphones and adoring fans at other times. That’s just one perception. No doubt a series review will determine if this was indeed the case.

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The RFL must now decide

The question now falls to the Rugby Football League: back him or sack him. Wane is contracted until the end of 2026, taking in next year’s World Cup in Australia and Papua New Guinea. He hasn’t coached a club side since 2018, an eternity in rugby league terms. In November 2024, the coach expressed a desire to return to club coaching at some point, admitting he missed preparing regularly for matches and hinting at excess capacity: “I feel like I’m under-selling myself.”

The likes of Paul Rowley, Matt Peet, Willie Peters, Michael Maguire and Brian McDermott are all names likely to come to the fore in conversations about Wane’s future.

Wane’s prickly dismissal of the Man of Steel award did little to help his cause. Asked about Jake Connor, the 2025 winner, Wane waved it away: “I don’t know who picks it and it never comes into my consideration.” You don’t have to pick Jake Connor to respect the game’s most prestigious individual award. But publicly diminishing it? That’s poor politics.

The RFL face a difficult task marketing an honor their own England coach treats with contempt. There are more than enough knowledgeable rugby league fans here. They demand more than a “credit in the bank” explanation when selecting players to represent them.

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At times, Wane’s passion seems to have curdled into obstinacy. He talks about “English grit” as if it were a secret weapon, but grit without craft is just friction. His side looked rigid, predictable, and joyless. For a man who once demanded the team “play without fear,” his players look paralysed by it.

When asked recently about 2026, Wane said: “I don’t believe I’m the right man to coach England at the World Cup – I know it.” He “knew” plenty of things, of course. He “knew” the out-of-form players he picked would deliver. They didn’t. He “knew” his spine was right — until he changed three of those four positions after one game. Now, it’s the governing body who must “know.”

The RFL must choose between doubling down on loyalty or acknowledging that the “disaster” Wane once warned of has already arrived and, by his own admission, it’s on him. In sport, as in politics, when your own words become your best critic, the argument is usually over. There are of course much broader issues at play in the game over here. The federation must decide if more of the same will deliver different results and if they are happy with keeping their fingers crossed for that. The alternative is to draw a line in the sand. The next few months will be telling.