{"id":243890,"date":"2025-10-27T10:18:16","date_gmt":"2025-10-27T10:18:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/243890\/"},"modified":"2025-10-27T10:18:16","modified_gmt":"2025-10-27T10:18:16","slug":"nrl-news-2025-aj-brimson-billy-smith-england-team-snubbing-kangaroos-tour-laurie-daley-comments-on-super-league","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/243890\/","title":{"rendered":"NRL news 2025 | AJ Brimson, Billy Smith England team snubbing; Kangaroos tour; Laurie Daley comments on Super League"},"content":{"rendered":"

Laurie Daley<\/a> has floated the theory that England coach Shaun Wane is picking Super League players over NRL players due to a patriotic obsession with proving that the English competition can match it with its Australian counterpart.<\/p>\n

Ever since the Kangaroos’ 26-6 win in the first Ashes Test<\/a>, calls have been made for changes to England’s team, in particular the inclusion of AJ Brimson.<\/p>\n

Jack Welsby was underwhelming at fullback and his defensive decision for Angus Crichton’s first try has been criticised heavily<\/a>.<\/p>\n

READ MORE: ‘Horrible’ England slammed after ’embarrassing’ defeat<\/a><\/p>\n

READ MORE: ‘Shame and guilt’: Retiring star reveals gambling addiction<\/a><\/p>\n

READ MORE: Piastri reveals ‘major’ change after losing championship lead<\/a><\/p>\n

\"NSW<\/p>\n

Laurie Daley.\u00a0Getty<\/p>\n

Titans reject Kallum Watkins was also selected in the squad over Roosters centre Billy Smith while Morgan Smithies missed out on the first Test team.<\/p>\n

“I think they need to make some changes,” Daley said on Sky Sports Radio’s The Big Sports Breakfast.<\/p>\n

“Jack Welsby is obviously a very good player in the English Super League, but that incident with Angus Crichton when he scored the try, he must have just lost all bearings of where he was. I’ve never seen a fullback do that.<\/p>\n

“He had to go forward and you go forward in that situation, but he stayed back and allowed Angus a free run to the line. If he moves forward he gets an opportunity to stop him.<\/p>\n

“I just couldn’t believe that decision by an experienced player who has a big reputation in England.”<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

England coach Shaun Wane.\u00a0Getty<\/p>\n

Watch the 2025 rugby league Ashes series live and free on Nine and 9Now<\/a>.<\/p>\n

As a result, Daley wants Brimson in for the second Test and believes reasons other than performance were at play when the team was named, as well as the squad.<\/p>\n

“Brimson has got to come in because at least he brings a bit of speed,” Daley said.<\/p>\n

“It is because they don’t want to put too many Australians in, that’s what they think. But they are playing for England, so they are eligible to play for England.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

AJ Brimson and Sam Verrills. \u00a0NRL Photos<\/p>\n

“They have probably got this thing where, they are Australians playing in the NRL and we will show them how good the Super League is, well no.<\/p>\n

“I even thought Morgan Smithies should have been in the (first Test) squad, he’s getting week in, week out experience in the NRL … Billy Smith I would have had him in.<\/p>\n

“The problem is they believe Super League is a really strong competition and they want to pick as many as they can from there … that would be the main reason.”<\/p>\n

Daley did admit during the segment he doesn’t watch a lot of Super League but believes Samoa and Tonga would now beat England.<\/p>\n

The two Pacific nations toured England over the last two years and lost their series’. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Laurie Daley has floated the theory that England coach Shaun Wane is picking Super League players over NRL…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":243891,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,761,762,158,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-243890","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\/243890","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=243890"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243890\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/243891"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=243890"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=243890"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=243890"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}