Defending champions meet the hosts
England Wheelchair have one job on Tuesday: beat Australia, on Australian soil, to stay alive in their Rugby League World Cup defence. The semi-final kicks off at 9.45am, according to Sky Sports, with France against Ireland in the other last-four tie at 6.45am.
England arrive as the 2022 champions and went through the pool unbeaten against Ireland, Wales and the USA. Australia will be a different proposition. The sides met in last year’s Wheelchair Ashes series down under, and England took it 2-0, but the hosts have had a year to close the gap.
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Hawkins expects more from the Aussies
Rob Hawkins, who has played for England since 2019, says nothing about this tournament has been as easy as the scorelines suggest. He believes Australia are better than the side England faced at the 2022 World Cup and wonders whether they have moved on again since last year’s series.
The noise will be one of the challenges. Hawkins recalled the Australian fans as lively at last year’s Ashes and expects a decent crowd again, which he says England can use as motivation rather than a burden.
A career that began by accident
Hawkins nearly never got here. He walked into a Halifax Panthers session believing it was a wheelchair basketball tryout, only to find it was wheelchair rugby league. He stayed 20 minutes in the chair before his body gave out, then kept coming back. A win over Australia would put him one game away from a second world title.
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