Shaun Wane hopes 2025 Ashes can take priority over domestic schedule after passionate plea

England head coach Shaun Wane is hopeful that the prospect of a home Ashes series can take priority over Super League’s scheduling in 2025: and has even endorsed the prospect of old-school midweek tour matches returning. 

International rugby league has consistently sat below domestic scheduling in the pecking order on both sides of the world for years.

But with real momentum behind a number of national teams on and off the field, speculation that the Kangaroos will tour England next year has sent interest in the international game to a fresh height.

Wane was quick to share his memories of old-school Kangaroos tours with the media on Tuesday – before insisting he is hopeful that international rugby will take priority with the sport’s organisers in 2025.

That could include the Australians playing traditional midweek tour games against club sides – something Mal Meninga himself appeared to endorse recently – and Wane threw his support behind the idea too. He then called on the sport to make sure that in 2025, The Ashes is the thing that takes top billing.

When asked if midweek games were impossible in the modern era, Wane said: “On squad numbers, it’s not. You can play midweek games if your numbers are good and we’d be up for it. I think we’d have to be up for that.

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“I think we need to make it fit and we need to build the calendar around this next year. We need to nail this. The interest what the World Cup drove tells you everything about how people love the international game.

“It’s special, it’s different, and that’s what we have to get behind. If people want a midweek game then we need to make it fit and make it happen.”

Wane also insisted that with the Kangaroos touring England at the end of next year now all-but a certainty, there cannot be a repeat of this year’s shambolic mid-season international window. He is hopeful that there will be proper time allocated to the England setup in 2025 throughout the Super League campaign.

“That period is so, so important that we nail it,” Wane said. “Whatever we decide to do, that mid-season international for the Knights and the senior squad, it’s vital. It needs to be of Test match intensity and that would help me massively.”

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And perhaps unsurprisingly, Wane was effusive about the prospect of facing the Australians in a three-match series: something he was supposed to do in 2020 before Covid-19 forced a Kangaroos tour to be cancelled.

“For me, I was brought up on Australia and New Zealand (touring) in the 70s and 80s,” he said.

“I remember getting the job and when Ralph (Rimmer) said my first series was against Australia, I couldn’t believe my luck. I was devastated when it happened so for them to travel here is unbelievable. I’m so excited, I can’t wait for it now.

“Someone rang me and said there was a chance this was happening. I immediately thought I’d love it, full houses and good atmospheres. My memories of playing Australia at Wigan, (Adrian) Morley and all that, an electric atmosphere.. I want to be a part of that.

“The NRL and Australian rugby league is the pinnacle. They’ve played the best rugby for decades and I want to put myself against Mal Meninga and the Australian team. That’s why I signed up for this job. It would be the pinnacle of my career to coach against them.”

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