BRIAN McDERMOTT has confirmed his England coaching and backroom staff for this year’s World Cup.
Former St Helens coach Paul Wellens and ex-Wigan Warriors star Sean O’Loughlin will be McDermott’s assistant coaches, with Carl Jennings the high performance expert and Matty Daniels leading England’s strength and conditioning operation.
Wellens, who previously served as an England assistant under Steve McNamara, Wayne Bennett and Shaun Wane and has also worked with Tonga, is now an assistant coach to Todd Payten at NRL club North Queensland Cowboys, while O’Loughlin has a similar role under Matt Peet with Wigan.
Meanwhile, Jason Davidson will be McDermott’s operations manager for the tournament in Australia, New Zealand and Papua New Guinea, which begins next month.
Davidson spent 17 seasons at Leeds in spells as head conditioner and team manager, joining the West Yorkshire outfit back in 2005 and overseeing seven Grand Final successes and three Challenge Cup triumphs.
Three of those Grand Final successes came under McDermott, who is now an assistant coach with NRL side Gold Coast Titans.
For McDermott, it was a case of surrounding himself with a like-minded staff that can drive his message home to the playing squad.
“The staff was a big one for me because I’m not going to do everything,” McDermott said.
“We’ve got a decentralised training program and we’ve started from scratch. When I came in, I had no staff, I didn’t know what the squad was going to be and what the logistics were going to be.
“I can’t do everything, I don’t want to do everything, but to keep the same message and to have the same philosophy about how you lead and how you want to play, you’ve got to spend time with your staff.
“When one of the squad members is talking to any one of the members of the staff, there can’t be any contradiction. There has got to be a consistent message and that has been the hard work for me.”