Shaun Wane still can’t comprehend England’s World Cup exit but insists he's still the right man for the job.
As Gareth Southgate’s side continue their bid for global glory in Qatar on Saturday, the nation’s gutted rugby league chief is still smarting after last month’s shattering semi-final defeat to Samoa. Hosts England blew a brilliant chance to rule the world when delivering an error-ridden display at Emirates Stadium. The golden point extra-time loss proved a huge let-down after a tournament that promised so much.
Indeed, an emotional Wane was in tears in the post-match press conference. In his first interview since that sobering afternoon, he admitted: “I’ve still not got over it. It’s still hard to understand what happened that day. Immediately after the game it was what I did, how we trained and I was analysing myself.
“But then it was how we got through the tournament and the staff, and trying to analyse that. But we’ve not come up with any answers yet. There’s things in that game we could obviously have done better. And I’m convinced if we’d have got through, we’d have troubled Australia in the final. But we’ll never know now. That’s the torture.”
It remains that no British side has won the World Cup since Great Britain in 1972. But considering England reached the 2017 final under Wayne Bennett in Brisbane - and Samoa had never gone so far - there were inevitable calls for Wane’s head. But the ex-Wigan coach, who is now out of contract, insisted he won't contemplate quitting.
Wane, 58, said: “No. I don’t. If they (the RFL) think that’s the end then that’s up to them. Most England coaches, like Steve McNamara and Wayne Bennett, had three or four tournaments. I’ve had one and it finished in a disappointing way, there’s no doubt about that.
“But I know what success looks like. We’ll learn from what we did and adapt. I’m pretty comfortable as a coach and with what I do so if the RFL was to see it another way, then that’s up to them.”
He did concede getting some things wrong in that semi. Many people thought not selecting hooker Andy Ackers on the bench was a mistake. Wane, 58, admitted he would have done some things differently and said: “There’s a couple of things in team selection in hindsight.
“But that’s easy in hindsight. And I remember many years ago meeting Alex Ferguson who said to me he could handle one or two players having an off day but you can’t have three or four. That day (against Samoa) we’d three or four not at their best. They did things they don’t normally do. And that was tough to deal with. But I can never fault their effort.”
