{"id":225837,"date":"2025-10-19T19:59:14","date_gmt":"2025-10-19T19:59:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/225837\/"},"modified":"2025-10-19T19:59:14","modified_gmt":"2025-10-19T19:59:14","slug":"matty-nicholson-lifts-lid-on-england-omission-with-shaun-wane-conversation-revealed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/225837\/","title":{"rendered":"Matty Nicholson lifts lid on England omission with Shaun Wane conversation revealed"},"content":{"rendered":"

Matty Nicholson reveals all on his England omission and conversations with Shaun Wane ahead of the Ashes.<\/p>\n

10:00, 18 Oct 2025Updated 10:02, 18 Oct 2025<\/p>\n

\"MattyMatty Nicholson enjoyed a fine start to his NRL career with Canberra Raiders until injury struck. Photo by Mark Nolan\/Getty Images.<\/p>\n

Canberra Raiders back-rower Matty Nicholson has opened up on missing out on England\u2019s Ashes series – admitting it was probably the right call not to be included.<\/p>\n

The 22-year-old moved to the NRL ahead of the 2025 season from Warrington Wolves and made an immediate impact, scoring two tries on his Canberra debut in a 32\u201322 win over eventual Premiership winners Brisbane Broncos.<\/p>\n

Nicholson impressed early on with nine consecutive appearances, but a fractured fibula and serious ankle injury halted his momentum, ruling him out long-term. The Wigan Warriors academy product only returned for the final two games of the season, with the Raiders eventually knocked out of the playoffs by Cronulla Sharks.<\/p>\n

Speaking about his England omission, Nicholson revealed it was a joint decision between him and national coach Shaun Wane.<\/p>\n

\u201cI actually rang Waney myself before coming back to England just to get a sense of what his thoughts were,\u201d he said, speaking to the Warrington Guardian<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe both agreed that I probably wasn\u2019t quite at full fitness \u2013 I\u2019d only played two games in the last 16 weeks after all.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was very tough to admit that to myself, but I probably wasn\u2019t quite up to scratch to go straight into an Ashes series.<\/p>\n

\u201cWaney agreed \u2013 we had a good conversation and he was very supportive.\u201d<\/p>\n

Instead of the Ashes – the first series between England and Australia in 22 years – Nicholson has turned his focus to next year\u2019s World Cup down under.<\/p>\n

There will be 10 teams competing in the men\u2019s event next year, while matches will be staged in Australia and Papua New Guinea alongside the women\u2019s and wheelchair tournament.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe World Cup is on the horizon next year so I\u2019ll focus on having a good year with Canberra and being injury-free because having missed out on an Ashes series, I definitely want to be in that squad,\u201d Nicholson declared.<\/p>\n

In this autumn\u2019s Ashes, more than 50,000 tickets have already been sold for the opening game at Wembley on October 25, with the following fixtures in Liverpool and Leeds already sold out.<\/p>\n

Nicholson added: \u201cMorgan Smithies is my best mate and he\u2019s in there and I know a lot of the guys in that squad, so I\u2019ll be rooting for them and hopefully we can get the win.\u201d<\/p>\n

READ NEXT: Shaun Wane\u2019s George Williams comment hints at England half-back debate<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Matty Nicholson reveals all on his England omission and conversations with Shaun Wane ahead of the Ashes. 10:00,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":225838,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,761,762,158,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-225837","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\/225837","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=225837"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/225837\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/225838"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=225837"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=225837"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=225837"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}