Rugby League World Cup means a big year for England players and the NRL

The English players competing in the first weekend of the NRL season will be hoping to finish the year by wearing three lions on their chests at the Rugby League World Cup. Given that the NRL is clearly the world’s best rugby league competition, you would be forgiven for assuming that anyone deemed good enough to play in it would be a shoo-in for England. Not so. The likelihood is that half of the dozen eligible players will do so.

Just one England player was signed by an NRL club this winter – Oliver Gildart, who moved from Wigan to Sydney. He faces a daunting debut on Saturday, when he starts at left centre for Wests Tigers against Melbourne Storm alongside his bulked-up former Wigan teammate Jackson Hastings. On Friday, England regulars Josh Hodgson and Elliott Whitehead will start for Canberra against Cronulla, but Ryan Sutton is their 18th man and young second-rower Harry Rushton misses out completely; Luke Thompson is starting prop for Canterbury at North Queensland on Sunday; Tom Burgess is in the South Sydney 17 that travels to Brisbane on Friday, for whom Lancastrian Herbie Farnworth will play centre. And Dominic Young, another uncapped young Englishman, will be on the wing for Newcastle at Sydney Roosters on Saturday.

None of these players – nor George Burgess, who misses out for St George – will have any practical involvement with the England setup until late September at the earliest, which may make it harder for them – especially Farnworth and Young – to impress Shaun Wane sufficiently to make his World Cup squad.

If England impress at the World Cup, expect to see more players make the move from Super League to the NRL. The World Cup itself is where players can prove they have what it takes to compete