WORLD IN HIS SIGHTS
Edwards seeks France glory
SHAUN EDWARDS should be basking in the afterglow of a record win over the All Blacks but his mind is racing.
He is back in Wigan to spend time with his dad. Then there are the council elections in which his son James is standing as a Labour Party candidate.
France’s defence coach plans to be on doorsteps in the Westminster area giving out leaflets ahead of the May 5 vote.
Before then he has a Six Nations campaign to prepare for. And all the while the lingo to master.
“My daughter speaks French fluently and corrects me whenever I pronounce anything wrong,” he says. “She is six!”
For a man who lives and breathes rugby, there is a lot else going on in his life. But one goal looms large.
The World Cup will start in September 2023. It is in France and having stuck 40 points on New Zealand a fortnight ago the host nation are now joint-favourites.
Aside from Martin Johnson’s England, no European side has won the Webb Ellis Cup. Edwards aims to change that.
“We’re everyone’s second favourite team,” says Edwards. “The way we play, we take risks.
“We’ve got respect now, but we haven’t won anything. That’s the next step and it’s often the hardest one.”
The 55-year-old knows all about winning, having achieved pretty much everything, as player and coach, in rugby’s two codes.
“Not everything,” he corrects. “I’ve not coached a World Cupwinning team. I’ve been close a couple of times and was a threetime club world champion in league but never at international level. “So I’m on a World Cup mission. I never really switch off. Winning a trophy for France is my big driver.” England are among the biggest obstacles between him and his dream. “Normally I don’t speak about other teams,” says Edwards, who has never got to coach the land of his birth.
“But there has not been a bad England team. They’ve always been difficult to beat and always will be. “Martin Gleeson is doing a great job [as attack coach].
“It’s great to see a lad who was serious about coaching from the start do well. You want people like that to succeed.”
Perhaps not in 2023, however, when France will carry the hopes of their increasingly expectant public.
“We can’t allow that to become a burden,” says Edwards, who believes silverware is within reach if they can get the balance right between flair and discipline. “We don’t want to do what England did in the 2015 World Cup and go out early.”