England Head Coach Shaun Wane has given his immediate post-match thoughts after his side’s defeat at Everton's Hill Dickinson Stadium on Saturday, which saw Australia go 2-0 up in the 2025 ABK Beer Ashes Series:
“I was proud for the majority of the game,” Wane said. “For 70 minutes we were good. We just switched off in the first ten minutes after half-time and that hurt us immensely.
“We did a lot of good things today, but just not enough.”
A victory for the Kangaroos today sees the visitors seal the series, meaning England’s wait to win the Ashes agonisingly goes on:
“They’ve won it and we’ve not, and it hurts," Wane continued.
“I’m devastated, but I’m very proud that the players had a dig. But I was so disappointed at that after half-time, which cost us dearly.
“We need to defend better – I don’t think those types of tries should be scored in a test match, but fair play to Australia.
“They are ruthless when they get a chance, and we weren’t.
“We had a lot of ball in the first half. I wanted us to build pressure as we didn’t do that last week, but I felt we did do that this week. We just didn’t have that detail in attack.
“I was happy with a lot of the things we did, but it was just that switch off in the second half.
“We have to give a lot of credit to Australia – they play a lot of test matches in their competition.
“They play a lot more intense games and that makes me feel proud that we stuck at it for 70 minutes today, but the overriding feeling is the disappointment of not finishing the job.
“There are ways we could have attacked much better and that upset me. We completed higher than them and we had more penalties than them, so there was no excuse.
“Overall, they did things better than us when it mattered. We need to be better and that’s absolutely gutting.
“We’ll try and fix our defence frailties for next week.”
Looking ahead to the third test in Leeds next Saturday, Wane is determined to finish the series strongly:
“There will be changes next week.
“They [Australia] will be obsessed to win 3-0 and we need to be obsessed to make it 2-1. I’ve just said that to the players, so that has to be our obsession starting tonight and then we’ll start reviewing tomorrow.
“It’s going to be a tough week, but it’ll be who wants it the most who is going to get the victory next week.
“We have to finish this series 2-1.”
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