Rugby Football League CEO Abi Ekoku has insisted there is \u2018no urgency\u2019 on a decision over Shaun Wane\u2019s future as England head coach \u2013 and has defended the lack of mid-season plans going into next year\u2019s World Cup.<\/p>\n
There is still no clarity over whether or not Wane will be the man to lead the national team Down Under next year, after presiding over this autumn\u2019s series whitewash against Australia.<\/p>\n
Ekoku was asked by Love Rugby League on whether or not a decision was close, with the interim CEO of the governing body appearing to suggest there will be nothing imminent as an internal review of the series and the England programme continues.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt would be disrespectful to everybody involved in that process not to get their feedback, that comes from Shaun as well as he is an RFL employee,\u201d Ekoku said.<\/p>\n
\u201cOnce that\u2019s all in, that decision will be made. There\u2019ll be no prevarication over it. It\u2019s international sport.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt means you judge at the highest levels and there shouldn\u2019t be any hesitation. There\u2019s a World Cup next year, so you want certainty as to decision making, so planning can be done.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ekoku then insisted there was no need to rush a decision, adding: \u201cBut again, there\u2019s no urgency. The Kangaroos didn\u2019t have a coach until how long before this series? The England football manager\u2019s job is almost part-time theoretically so you can look at things in different ways.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ekoku also insisted he understood why there was no room being created in the Super League calendar to allow England any games or training camps throughout 2026.<\/p>\n
Incredibly, the next time England take to the field will be in the opening game of next autumn\u2019s World Cup \u2013 but Ekoku stressed that with NRL clubs unlikely to release players to feature in a mid-season match, he saw little point in creating a designated window.<\/p>\n
When asked why England weren\u2019t playing mid-season, he said: \u201cLet me ask the question back in a different way. Can England have a meaningful mid-season international if you\u2019re not getting a release of NRL players?<\/p>\n
\u201cInternational sport is a rough, tough environment. What you can offer at the centre as a governing body to players coming from the top clubs is always less than they get at a club.<\/p>\n
\u201cShaun is a fantastic coach and he\u2019s been a very successful Super League coach, but what can he impart in the middle of a season?\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Rugby Football League CEO Abi Ekoku has insisted there is \u2018no urgency\u2019 on a decision over Shaun Wane\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":313420,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[5903,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-313419","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-rugby","8":"tag-rugby","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/313419","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=313419"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/313419\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/313420"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=313419"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=313419"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=313419"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}