Shaun Edwards has ‘ambition to win rugby championship’

A former Great Britain rugby league captain, Edwards began his prolific rugby union coaching career with a trophy-laden spell at Wasps, before joining Warren Gatland’s Wales side in 2008 where he won four Six Nations championships in a 12-year spell.

Since moving to France after the 2019 World Cup, Edwards has helped the French win a Grand Slam title in 2022 as well as back-to-back titles in 2025 and 2026.

However, he says he has not received any offer to coach his country, despite regular calls for the Rugby Football Union to bring back the 59-year-old.

“One thing I’ve learned over the years is that you have to be asked if you’re going to a club or association,” Edwards said.

“They have to call you and ask you. After the next World Cup, we’ll see what happens.”

Edwards’ Welsh defense is known as one of the best in the game, going four straight games without conceding on his way to winning the Six Nations in 2013.

However, with France conceding 96 points in their last two matches, and with a record number of tries scored in this year’s tournament, Edwards says the game has changed dramatically.

“The rugby world wants more points, and a lot of the rules have changed in favor of attack,” he explained.

“In 2010, you could have two or three people competing in the game at a time, two or three times. Now you can compete for the ball once, with one player, who can only make one attempt.

“The other reason is the quality of the pitches. It’s unrecognizable [from what they were].

“Most people when they go to watch rugby don’t go to watch defence, they go to watch attack.

“I was saying [you need to] Keep it under 20 pips. So 16, 17 points. But right now, a good day in the office for defense is 21, 22 points.

“We defended strongly in the first three games, but when we played against the top teams – I think Scotland are one of the best attacking teams in the world and England are a well-coached attacking team – we obviously struggled.”