{"id":157923,"date":"2025-09-21T02:51:12","date_gmt":"2025-09-21T02:51:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/157923\/"},"modified":"2025-09-21T02:51:12","modified_gmt":"2025-09-21T02:51:12","slug":"first-man-on-the-plane-matty-johns-makes-pitch-for-broncos-star-to-join-ashes-tour","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/157923\/","title":{"rendered":"‘First man on the plane’: Matty Johns makes pitch for Broncos star to join Ashes tour"},"content":{"rendered":"

Rugby league legend Matthew Johns has weighed into the debate over who Kevin Walters should select for Australia in this year’s Ashes series.<\/p>\n

For Johns, he believes Reece Walsh should be the first player picked in the Kangaroos squad based on form.<\/p>\n

Speaking on SEN<\/a>‘s\u00a0Morning Glory with Matty Johns<\/a>, he even compared Walsh’s recent brilliance in the qualifying final against Canberra, to Nathan Cleary’s famous Grand Final heroics in 2023.<\/p>\n

“I reckon it\u2019s on par with Nathan Cleary\u2019s 2023, the last 15 minutes against the Broncos, it was incredible,” Johns said.<\/p>\n

MORE:\u00a0Why did the Broncos get a penalty goal for contact on Reece Walsh?<\/a><\/p>\n

The Broncos star had a chaotic 80-minutes after being sin-binned for a fiery clash with Raiders enforcer Hudson Young, before exploding late in the contest to secure his side the win almost single-handedly.<\/p>\n

“Both sides were starting to wobble, all of a sudden Walsh gets sent to the sin bin,”\u00a0Johns said.<\/p>\n

“[Then he]\u00a0just comes out totally fresh and blows them away.”<\/p>\n

While the incumbent Dylan Edwards and champion fullback James Tedesco remain strong options, Johns insists that Walsh offers more than just form on the park – he will bring genuine star power to each contest.<\/p>\n

“Kevvie. Reece Walsh has to be the first man on the plane,”\u00a0Johns said, highlighting the 23-year-old’s box-office appeal.<\/p>\n

Johns argued that England’s struggling rugby league scene would benefit enormously from Walsh’s presence, with his large following capable of drawing capacity crowds and attention.<\/p>\n

“When they went to Newcastle, there were thousands at every training session to watch him and going over to England, it would be enormous for the game,” he said.<\/p>\n

With Edwards battling inconsistency and Tedesco putting together one of the best seasons of his career, Walters and the selectors face a tough decision. But Johns insists that Walsh is essential to the tour.<\/p>\n

“You think about a guy like Reece, if you want to sell the game, he\u2019s the selling point,” Johns concluded.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Rugby league legend Matthew Johns has weighed into the debate over who Kevin Walters should select for Australia…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":157924,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,761,762,158,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-157923","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nrl","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-national-rugby-league","11":"tag-nationalrugbyleague","12":"tag-nrl","13":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157923","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=157923"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157923\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/157924"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=157923"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=157923"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=157923"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}