New to Kayo? Join now and get your first month for just $1.<\/a><\/p>\nFor the last decade, rugby league in England has been struggling financially, with clubs concerned about the soon-to-expire television deal with Sky Sports, fearing the league could completely collapse.<\/p>\n
Crowd and TV viewership numbers are fairly low, as is the overall interest in the 13-man code, which has to rival sports such as football (soccer), rugby union and cricket. <\/p>\n
It has led to talk about the NRL even buying a stake in the struggling competition.<\/p>\n
But Monday\u2019s game showed the key to making the Super League great again is star power. And in a team that featured the likes of Nathan Cleary and Cameron Munster, it was Walsh who put tens of thousands of bums on seats. A whopping 60,812 people turned up to watch the first Ashes match, an incredible turnout.<\/p>\n
To put that into perspective, the average attendance across the 2025 Super League season was 10,044, with teams such as the Salford Red Devils and Huddersfield Giants averaging crowd numbers of less than 5,000 spectators a game.<\/p>\n
And a quick look at social media and listening to chatter about the first Ashes match – even ahead of Walsh\u2019s starring performance – showed the young Broncos star was the talk of the town. <\/p>\n
His exciting brand of football reignited interest in the sport, which had English fans unable to look away.<\/p>\n
\u201cReece Walsh was worth the entrance fee alone; I\u2019ve never seen a player move like him before. He\u2019ll go down as the greatest of all time, I reckon,\u201d Warrington Wolves fan Johnny Gordon wrote on X.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Rugby League. Reece Walsh is very, very good,\u201d Leigh Leopards fan Alex Alderdice said.<\/p>\n
\u201cLong day, but good day. Pity the game not closer, but always good to see the Aussies in the flesh. Reece Walsh worth the trip!!\u201d Irishman Tadhg Rohan wrote.<\/p>\n
\u201cResult was as expected but still a fab day out with the fam \u2013 and watching Reece Walsh live is deffo even better than watching him on TV! What a talent,\u201d English woman Rachel Anne added.<\/p>\n
In just 80 minutes Walsh showed the UK how exciting rugby league can be and had tongues wagging. <\/p>\n
It also vindicated calls for him to be the first man on the plane, if not for his undeniable raw talent, his star power and excitement factor alone.<\/p>\n
Ahead of the Kangaroos\u2019 tour of England, Matty Johns said Walsh should be the first player picked.<\/p>\n
\u201cKevvie. Reece Walsh has to be the first man on the plane,\u201d Johns previously said on SEN.<\/p>\n
\u201cForget about football matters, the game over there is struggling. They (England) desperately need this tour. And I will tell you what else they desperately need is high-profile players like Reece Walsh being there.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen 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.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou think about a guy like Reece, if you want to sell the game, he\u2019s the selling point. If you took Teddy and Edwards, you still take Walsh. <\/p>\n
\u201cBecause the most important thing with this Ashes series isn\u2019t Australia winning, the most important thing is when the players come back, the English game is in better shape.\u201d<\/p>\n
It may only be one game into a series that looks almost certain to be a clean sweep to the green and gold, but more importantly, Walsh has already done his part to help bolster the game in England.<\/p>\n
Originally published as England loses its mind over Reece Walsh as NRL hopes superstar will save the Super League<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Reece Walsh set Wembley Stadium alight on Sunday (AEDT) as the Kangaroos started their Ashes series against England…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":241536,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,761,762,158,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-241535","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\/241535","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=241535"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/241535\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/241536"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=241535"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=241535"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=241535"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}