England legend James Graham has knocked back suggestions he would be interested in leading the national side in next year\u2019s World Cup \u2013 saying he wants Shaun Wane to remain in post.<\/p>\n
Following England\u2019s 3-0 defeat to Australia in the Ashes, speculation is rife about whether or not Wane is the right man to lead the squad into a World Cup on overseas soil in 12 months time.<\/p>\n
The likes of Michael Maguire have already been linked to the position should the Rugby Football League decide against keeping Wane on \u2013 though he is contracted for 2026 as it stands.<\/p>\n
But the most intriguing link emerging Down Under is one suggesting that Graham and Sam Burgess could join forces to form a joint leadership team that could potentially replace Wane.<\/p>\n
Speaking on his own podcast, The Bye Round, Graham was quizzed by co-host Charlie White on whether or not those links had any substance, and whether he would hold an interest in the job.<\/p>\n
Graham, however, was adamant about Wane remaining in the role.<\/p>\n
\u201cLook, Charlie, I\u2019m going to say this. I want Shaun Wane to be the coach,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s as simple as that. Yeah. I want him to be the coach.<\/p>\n
\u201cI want him to be successful. Like, I can\u2019t say anything more than that. I think it\u2019s.. respectfully, he\u2019s contracted. But more than that, I want him to coach England.\u201d<\/p>\n
However, Graham was then questioned on whether he\u2019d be tempted to accept any offer from Wane to come into the staff as a potential assistant \u2013 something which, at this stage, there has been no suggestion of.<\/p>\n
Graham was slightly more coy on that, saying: \u201cIt would be scary, Charlie, because what happens if I like it?\u201d<\/p>\n
The forward is one of England\u2019s greatest players, and nobody has more caps for the national team than he did, having played for England and Great Britain over 50 times.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"England legend James Graham has knocked back suggestions he would be interested in leading the national side in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":262243,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[5903,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-262242","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-rugby","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/262242","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=262242"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/262242\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/262243"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=262242"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=262242"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=262242"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}