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According to captain the England captain, the national team were handed a harsh "reality check" as the Kangaroos won the Rugby League Ashes.

Australia's 14-4 triumph at Everton's Hill Dickinson Stadium on Saturday gave them a unassailable 2-0 advantage, making the upcoming final match in Leeds a dead rubber.

The national squad had entered the series holding aspirations of sending Australia to their first Ashes series defeat since 1970.

In the past two years, they had achieved a dominant victory over the Tongan side and a success over Samoa. But as the prestigious competition returned after a 22-year absence, the English were unable to make the leap against the top-ranked team.

"We're not making excuses. We've had enough preparations to perform correctly on the pitch, and it's clear we've quite done that," the captain told.

"Full marks to the Kangaroos. They were excellent defensively. But there's a lot to improve. It seems not as prepared as we believed we were entering this series.

"So it's a necessary reality check for us, and there is much to develop."

Australia 'Turn Up and Prove Merciless'

After being comprehensively defeated in an error-strewn display at Wembley, England's were much improved on Saturday back in the core regions of England's north.

In a rousing opening period, England elicited errors from the Australians and had dominant territory and ball control, but unfortunately did not capitalize on the scoreboard.

Tellingly, England have now managed just a single touchdown over two full matches, with player the forward powering through late on in the defeat in London.

In contrast, Australia have racked up half a dozen in two games - and when errors began to affect the hosts' play just after the interval, it was a case of when, not if, they were going to be made to pay.

First the playmaker went over, and then so too did the forward. From being level at four-all, the home side were 10 points adrift.

"Proud for the majority of the game. In my view for 70 minutes we were competitive," said the coach.

"The drop in intensity for a brief period after half-time hurt us immensely. The first try was avoidable and should not be scored in a top-level game.

"The team is devastated. So proud the squad had a go but very frustrated with that post-interval, which hurt us significantly."

Although the next World Cup in Australia and Papua New Guinea is just under a year from now, England's immediate focus will be on trying to salvage honor, preventing a 3-0 sweep and addressing the mistakes that irritated Wane.

"I wanted to see greater effort thrown at Australia. My aim was us to apply sustained attack in the game - we didn't do that last week," added the 61-year-old.

"We did this week. It's just a lack of precision in our attack where we could have put them under greater stress. We need to stop each of [tries] better.

"Fair play to Australia - that is not a criticism to them. They turn up and are ruthless when they seize opportunities, and we failed to be, but defensively we can and should do enhance.

"They will be focused to win the series whitewash and we need to be equally determined to make it 2-1. I've told that to the players. It has to be our obsession. It will be a challenging week but whoever strives for it the most will emerge victorious next week."

Intensity Needs to Elevate in Super League

The English side have played a comparable number of international fixtures to Australia since the previous global tournament in 2022.

However Wane believes that the strength of the Australian league - and level of the State of Origin matches between NSW and QLD - offer a much better grounding for performing at the top of the international game than what is on offer in the UK.

The England coach added that the hectic Super League fixture schedule left little opportunity for him to train his team during the campaign, which will only pose additional concerns around how the national team can narrow the difference to Australia before heading to the Southern Hemisphere in 2026.

"The Australians play a large number of Test matches in their league," he stated.

"We have 10-15 a year. We need really intense games to improve the domestic league and improve our prospects of winning these sorts of games.

"It was impossible to even practice with the players. There was no chance to got on the field in the season and I had the total cooperation of all clubs in the domestic competition.

"I understand in the boots of the club managers that need to win games. The league is that packed. It's unfortunate but that's not the cause we were defeated today."