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According to skipper the England captain, the national team were given a brutal "sobering lesson" as Australia clinched the prestigious series.

Australia's decisive 14-4 win at Everton's Hill Dickinson Stadium on the weekend gave them a commanding series edge, making next week's final match in Leeds a academic contest.

The national squad had come into the series dreaming of sending Australia to their maiden Ashes setback since the 1970s.

Recently, they had achieved a 3-0 series win over the Tongan side and a 2-0 triumph over the Samoan team. But as the prestigious competition resumed after a long break, England were unable to take the next step against the reigning title holders.

"No excuses from us. There were enough training periods to perform correctly on the field, and it's clear we've achieved that," the captain told.

"Australia deserve praise. They proved strong in defense. But we've got a lot to work on. We're probably not as good as we believed we were going into this series.

"So it's a good lesson for us, and [there is] loads to enhance."

The Kangaroos 'Turn Up and Are Clinical'

After being soundly beaten in an mistake-ridden performance at Wembley, England's were markedly enhanced on Saturday back in the rugby league heartlands of England's north.

In a rousing first half, the home side elicited errors from the Australians and had all the field position and ball control, but unfortunately did not make it count on the points tally.

Tellingly, the English team have now scored just one try over 160 minutes, with St Helens hooker the forward powering through late on in the loss in London.

On the other hand, Australia have scored half a dozen across the series - and when errors began to appear in the England's play just after the interval, it was a case of inevitability, they were going to be heavily penalized.

First Cameron Munster scored, and then so too did Hudson Young. From being level at four-all, England were 10 points adrift.

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

"The drop in intensity for a brief period after the break hurt us greatly. Munster's try was soft and should never happen in a Test match.

"The team is heartbroken. So proud the players had a dig but very frustrated with that second-half lapse, which cost us heavily."

While the upcoming global tournament in the Southern Hemisphere is just under 12 months away, the team's primary concern will be on trying to salvage honor, preventing a 3-0 sweep and eradicating the errors that annoyed the coach.

"I wanted to see more directed toward Australia. My aim was us to apply sustained attack in the game - we failed to deliver last week," added the 61-year-old.

"We managed this week. It's just a bit of detail in our offense where we could have applied under greater stress. We need to defend both [tries] more effectively.

"Fair play to the Kangaroos - that is no slight to them. They perform and are merciless when they seize opportunities, and we weren't, but defensively we must do enhance.

"The Australians will be focused to win 3-0 and we need to be equally determined to make it a respectable scoreline. I've told that to the players. This must become our primary goal. It will be a difficult week but whoever desires it the greatest will emerge victorious next week."

Intensity Must to Increase in Domestic Competition

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

However Wane argues that the caliber of the NRL - and level of the domestic rivalry matches between New South Wales and Queensland - deliver a superior foundation for competing at the top of the international game than what is on offer in the Europe.

The England coach added that the hectic domestic league calendar left no time for him to train his squad during the season, which will only pose additional concerns around how the national team can bridge the gap to Australia before heading to Oceania in 2026.

"They play a large number of Test matches in their competition," he remarked.

"We play ten to fifteen a year. We need highly competitive games to improve the competition and increase our prospects of winning these types of matches.

"It was impossible to even practice with the squad. We never trained together in the season and I had the full backing of all clubs in Super League.

"I have also been in the boots of the head coaches that need to win games. The competition is that packed. It's unfortunate but that's not the cause we got beaten today."