England have another NRL standout to consider for selection ahead of this year\u2019s Ashes: with Sydney Roosters star Billy Smith pledging his allegiance to Shaun Wane\u2019s side.<\/p>\n
Smith has endured a horrendous time with injuries throughout his career but has been one of the Roosters\u2019 most consistent players in 2025.<\/p>\n
The 25-year-old centre has managed to string together regular game-time for Trent Robinson\u2019s side and is playing a pivotal role in their late-season push to make the NRL finals.<\/p>\n
And now, he has personally reached out to Shaun Wane to express his interest in representing his English heritage alongside another Roosters team-mate in Victor Radley, who will be a certainty to be in Wane\u2019s 17 if fit later this year.<\/p>\n
\u201cBilly Smith contacted me, and I do like it when players contact me to express their desire to represent England,\u201d Wane said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m very grateful for that and, like Victor Radley, it\u2019s a sign that he wants to play for England. It goes a long way.<\/p>\n
\u201cI do rate him. I\u2019m a big fan of the NRL and all of the quality athletes playing in it. Billy Smith is one of the best athletes, he\u2019s a great centre and he would be a great asset. I like that he has contacted me, that means a lot and I will be pursuing it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Furthermore, Wane has seemingly hinted he would be interested in considering Smith given the character he has displayed in recovering from a string of serious injuries.<\/p>\n
Smith did not play a single NRL game in 2024 after being sidelined.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat shows character, which is what I like,\u201d Wane said. \u201cI\u2019m also a big fan of Victor Radley. He\u2019s as close to English as they come in terms of his mannerisms and the way he thinks, his personality.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019d imagine Billy Smith would be the same sort of character.\u201d<\/p>\n
Smith is likely to be in direct competition with Jake Wardle for a centre spot, with Herbie Farnworth a certainty on the other side if he, as expected, is fully fit for the Ashes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"England have another NRL standout to consider for selection ahead of this year\u2019s Ashes: with Sydney Roosters star…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":75526,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,761,762,158,85],"class_list":["post-75525","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nrl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-national-rugby-league","tag-nationalrugbyleague","tag-nrl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75525","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=75525"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75525\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/75526"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=75525"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=75525"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=75525"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}