Key events
68 mins. England’s next set on the Aus 20m is laboured but is making headway mainly though big one-out carries from Trout and Farnworth. On the final tackle the ball moves left to Lewis who grounds it and has a muted celebration. Muted because he knew the ball had bounced forward off a team-mate into his hands, and the ref knew it too. NO TRY!
TRY! England 0 – 20 Australia (Angus Crichton)
65 mins. Australia move left via Deardend to Munster, who pops the ball inside to Crighton for a free run in from 10 metres to add his second try of the match under the posts.
Cleary converts.
61 mins. A set of six for England in the Australia half is easily contained again. The home attack is static and when it does move the players are too often running into each other’s space. This allows the Kangaroos to simply hold their shape while the maladroit mess plays out in front of them, before walking forward and killing the space and the runners.
58 mins. Australia get a set restart close to the England line, but it’s their turn to ruin a platform with Cleary rushing and flapping a pass forward early in the tackle count. England run through the set from deep in their own half, but all they can do it kick it back to the Kangaroos after gaining 40 metres.
55 mins. Mikey Lewis ad Dom Young save their side’s blushes as the winger gathers the short drop-out from his half-back brilliantly. The ball is worked away through the tackles but there’s nothing to worry the Kangaroos at all.
53 mins. Another platform ruined by England as the ball is fizzed about early with the result being a spill to Walsh. The fullback wasted no time in streaking away fifty metres before he’s dragged down.
Four tackles later, Grant chips over the top into the in-goal and forces Welsby to knock the ball dead.
51 mins. Early in the tackle count, Jez Litton decides to mix it up a bit and booms a fantastic 40:20 to give England possession deep in Aus territory.
48 mins. England finally have a set to run. Williams finds Lewis with a long pass to the left and he looks to be making the Aus defence guess, but he can’t find a pass outside him to keep the move going. The ball comes all the way back to the right wing to Young who is snagged as he tries to gas Addo-Carr on the outside.
TRY! England 0 – 14 Australia (Angus Crichton)
45 mins. Crichton receives the ball in the left centre channel and simply canters through a gap by stepping off his left foot. He rambles up to the line as Welsby backsoff him and almost shepherd’s him to a try.
That entire defensive set was utter dreck from England. They look knackered and defeated already.
Cleary adds two.
43 mins. Walsh decides it’s time to put on a show. He drifts left after receiving a kick before straightening, blitzing through the line and running 70 metres, white players scrambling desperately. The fullback feeds inside to Addo-Carr who has his ankles tapped by Farnworth for a stunning recovery tackle.
A few tackles later the Kangaroos can’t get over the line and England can breathe again. That really would have been game over.
Second Half!
The game is back underway
The score remains close, but the worry for England is their inability to score at all. England have created decent platforms while Lewis and Williams have a been an odd combination of a little too circumspect at times before springing to life and forcing the ball. Patience is the key, as the Kangaroos demonstrated.
The green and gold waited 20 minutes for the English defence to drop off 5-10% before putting their creative and pacy lads to work, with Walsh and Nawaqanitawase prominent.
England must score first in the second half, as another six points to Australia will make climbing back into the game resemble the north face of the Eiger. With 13 massive Australians at the bottom who have stolen your gear.
Ben Stokes is here watching. Let’s not forget, if it wasn’t for rugby league, he would never have been the catalyst of one of England’s greatest cricket periods. His dad came over from NZ to coach Workington Town when Ben was a nipper.
Photograph: Mike Egerton/PA
Half-time!
The hooter sounds to end the half.
PENALTY! England 0 – 8 Australia (Nathan Cleary)
40 mins. To rub in England’s inability to score, on the next set Walsh is tackled off the ball and Cleary eats up the clock before slotting two points from the tee.
38 mins. Another half-chance for England as Johnston, free up the lft touchline, boots a diagonal kick of his left peg into the in-goal. Lewis and Welsby are chasing but can only watch as the ball rolls agonisingly dead while they are about a metre short of reaching it.
36 mins. The ball has been grounded over the line by Australia after Dom Young loses the ball claiming a Munster kick. However, the reason he lost the ball is Addo-Carr ran under him while he was in the air to spim the England winger like a top. NO TRY!
34 mins. Williams takes the ball to the line five metres from the Australia tryline, he dabs a grubber into the in-goal that Walsh reaches first to punch the ball dead. There was a hint of Farnworth being taken out off the ball by Carrigan, but the ref is not interested.
From the drop-out under the posts, Knowles knocks on and the Kangaroos can run the ball away to relieve the pressure.
31 mins. Wardle finds space in the left centre channel and is this close to popping a pass to Lewis who had a free run to the line, but Walsh gets a hand in to wobble the ball away. The tackle count is reset to zero, which allows Walmsley and McMeeken to have two strong carries near the 5m line before Lewis moves it right to the backs. However, the momentum is lost and the Kangaroos contain them.
28 mins. Every time the Kangaroos move the ball right to Nawaqanitawase it’s nightmare fuel for the English defence. He is put away again after some nifty hands and has the intelligence to throw a pass inside to Cleary. The home side are very lucky the scrum-half loses his footing as he was about to move the ball on to threaten the scrambling defence.
25 mins. There is some possession for England in the Aus half, but again there’s not a huge amount created in the face of the defensive efforts.
22 mins. You have to say that was coming. Territory had been dominated for a good few minutes in the England half, and this combined with Walsh getting himself more involved was causing issues for the tiring home defence.
Farnworth appears to be OK after his knock earlier, but Aussie captain Isaah Yeo isn’t; he’s off after failing and head injury assessment.
TRY! England 0 – 6 Australa (Reece Walsh)
21 mins. From just inside their own half Australia move right through fast hands all the way to Nawaqanitawase who gets outside the defence, offloads inside to Staggs and he feeds Walsh to run in and dive over the line to open the scoring.
Two points added from the tee.
20 mins. England’s sets are starting to look more laboured and there’s worse news as Farnworth looks to have picked up a knock in the tackle. Shaun Wane may want to consider some replacements as Australia have sensed the drop off and have upped their intensity.
17 mins. Walsh is growing into the game and he rejoins the line once more in attack. This creates a three on two on the left side, but the fullback gives his pass too much weetabix to send it over Shibasaki’s head and into touch.
On the next England set Cotter hammers Lewis to dislodge the ball on tackle three and win possession back for the Kangaroos.
15 mins. We have our first glimps of the Cleary, Munster and Walsh axis of attack coming together on the England 20m line. There are some clever patterns worked but the home defence don’t panic and contain the runners.
13 mins. Reece Walsh is penalised after he is adjudges to have not played the ball correctly midway in his own half die to falling over as he played it. This offers a great platform England, but Yeo immediately calls a captain’s challenge on the decision.
The video ref has a look and the reason he lost his feet is because Bateman shoved the back of his head as he was attempting to stand up. Decision overturned, how important will that be?
10 mins. England have the ball back from Walsh’s slap into touch and move up to the Australia 20m line. Welsby is up into the stand-off channel to throw a huge looping pass rightwards to absolutely no-one; Dom Young had tucked inside and left only grass near the touchline.
8 mins. Finally, an attack of note breaks out after a big carry from Dom Young sets Williams running free up the right touchline. He spots a gap behind the line to chip the ball into which is gathered by Farnworth whose pop pass to Johnston is slapped down by Walsh as he defends desperately.
6 mins. The first error of the game is a spilled ball from Hudson Young in the tackle that gives possession to England on halfway. The story of the match so far continues as a few carries lead to the ball being kicked away as the defence from Australia is organised and furiously competent.
4 mins. Welsby runs a a wide channel on a kick return that nearly allows him to put Farnworth away on the left, but the green and gold door slams shut. There are more jabs and probing runs from both sides as we await the game to break out from the solid start.
2 mins. Australia receive the ball and execute a settling first set of six of the match, the forwards carrying up to their forty metre line before Cleary puts his foot through the ball. A similar story for England’s first set as the teams feel their way into the test match.
Kick Off!
Mikey Lewis boots the game underway.
The teams are out into a cloudy autumn afternoon in London. We await the anthems and then the action.
While we’re considering the previous Ashes series in 2003. The first test last time out featured GB’s Adrian Morley being sent off after 12 seconds for a shocking high shot on Robbie Kearns. It happened so fast the camera had not even zoomed in from the wide kick-off angle to where the incident happened.
Here is Morley himself reflecting on it recently…
“I looked at my kids and had tears in my eyes.”
A lovely piece here about Leeds and England prop Mikolaj Oledzki, whose family arrived here from Gdansk when he was a child, and what it means to be in the squad for this series.
Some reflections on what lies ahead to get you in the mood before the match.
If you have an opinion on this match or anything else, then I’d love to read it. Send them in to me on the email
Teams
England: Jack Welsby, Dom Young, Herbie Farnworth, Jake Wardle, Tom Johnstone, George Williams (c), Mikey Lewis, Ethan Havard, Daryl Clark, Matty Lees, John Bateman, Kai Pearce-Paul, Morgan Knowles.
Interchanges: Jez Litten, Alex Walmsley, Owen Trout, Mike McMeeken
Australia: Reece Walsh, Mark Nawaqanitawase, Kotoni Staggs, Gehamat Shibasaki, Josh Addo-Carr, Cameron Munster, Nathan Cleary, Patrick Carrigan, Harry Grant, Tino Fa’asuamaleaui, Angus Crichton, Hudson Young, Isaah Yeo (c).
Interchanges: Tom Dearden, Lindsay Collins, Reuben Cotter, Keaon Koloamatangi.
Preamble
Welcome to the opening test of the 2025 Ashes series.
In rugby league, Ashes tests are like buses, come along as they do in threes very infrequently. Today is the start of the latest trio of matches after a 22 year wait since the fabulously sponsored “THINK! Don’t Drink And Drive!” series of 2003.
Buses can also mercilessly run over groups of people, and Australia have made a habit of releasing the brakes on their considerable heft to smash opposition from these islands for 55 years. The Kangaroos have won all 13 series since the last British victory in 1970 and come into this year’s installment as favourites to do the same.
A Great Britain team made up of a majority of English players lost the 2003 series to a whitewash despite leading all three tests in the second half; this was before the Australian class did enough late in each game to record an overall battering in that year’s sports almanac. The Kangaroos remain formidable two decades on, but England also have a greater number of players appearing weekly in the NRL down under than at any time previously, including the impressive Herbie Farnworth. The mystique and terror of the green and gold juggernaut arriving on these shores is not what it once was.
Even with that, turning the bus around and claiming victory after half a century of trying remains a huge challenge for Shaun Wane’s England.
