Brian McDermott has insisted that Jake Connor is ‘absolutely’ in his England plans for this year’s World Cup – before attacking the ‘rhetoric’ surrounding him last year under the previous regime.

Connor was arguably the talking point going into last year’s Ashes series. Having won the Man of Steel award and impressed for Leeds Rhinos throughout 2025, he was subsequently left out by Shaun Wane – before Wane insisted he did not pay attention to individual honours like the one Connor had won.

Wane then added that it was ‘not difficult’ to leave Connor out of the squad when pushed by the media before the series began last autumn – but McDermott has insisted his stance on the Leeds Rhinos star is almost the complete opposite.

Speaking for the first time since being unveiled as national team coach, McDermott stated that he felt the narrative about Connor was ‘tremendously unfair’ in what appeared to be a hit-out at the previous coach.

“Yeah he is (in my plans) for sure,” McDermott told the press. “Absolutely. The rhetoric around Jake was tremendously unfair.

“You’ll understand this in that, I understand where he comes from in that he’s liked by some and disliked by others. That’s the nature of the game. We can sit around the table and debate whether he’s a nice person but that’s not a fair rhetoric to be made public. You can’t argue he’s a fantastic player, he’s a brilliant player – he’s a game-breaker.”

McDermott also insisted he felt he had both the plan and the squad to deliver success in this autumn’s World Cup – which Connor now looks likely to be a part of.

When asked about the gap between England and Australia, McDermott said: “It’s bridgeable but you’ve got to have a plan specific to UK players and the level of preparation the UK players are going to have and that competition.

“We can win, we can absolutely win, but we have to do some things differently. The Ashes series, we pushed them all the way and they were rattled in parts of games. We just didn’t do it for long enough; we’re trading punches with Australia and it gets to that point in game where they would break away.

“But I’m confident they can get the job done.”