Shaun Edwards sets his ultimate goal: ‘to be part of No1 team in the world’
Wales’s defence coach is driven by his inner competitor and will relish the duel with his old Wigan team-mate Andy Farrell when his team play England.
There are plenty of occasional winners in sport, people who get lucky on a particular day. Then there are a precious few, like Shaun Edwards, who win so often it becomes their personal default setting. The other day Wales’s defence coach was counting the major trophies he has won since he first represented Wigan at 16. The answer is 49, with this season’s Six Nations championship about to begin.
Some statistical anoraks disagree, suggesting he won 37 winners’ medals in rugby league – Edwards insists the true number is 36 – and has reached his half-century already as player and coach. Frankly, though, it is not a wise fight to pick. If anyone should know, it is the man in the arena, perhaps the fiercest competitor of his generation. “I don’t know of anybody else in sport who’s got a record like it,” he acknowledges, staring self-consciously at his knuckles at Wales’s base in the Vale of Glamorgan. “It’s a lot, isn’t it? I’ve been lucky to have been in some good teams.”