Join now and get your first month for just $1<\/a>.<\/p>\nRecently appointed as head coach of the England team, Brian McDermott has opted to select 11 NRL stars in his 38-man preliminary squad.<\/p>\n
However, the squad doesn\u2019t include Strange, Queensland Maroons halfback Sam Walker and livewire dummy-half Blayke Brailey, who all could have technically represented the country at the end of the year.<\/p>\n
While Brailey and Walker were always a slim chance of representing England, there was hope that Strange would have accepted the opportunity to represent his mother\u2019s heritage.<\/p>\n
Strange has opted to reject England and New Zealand in an attempt to play for Australia.Source: Getty Images<\/p>\n
However, he has rejected the approach and has the sole focus of representing the Australian Kangaroos, per NRL.com.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve grown up in Australia. My mum\u2019s from England, grandma\u2019s from New Zealand, but I\u2019ve grown up in Australia, and I\u2019m Aussie,\u201d Strange told foxsports.com.au earlier this year.<\/p>\n
While the three players have turned down the opportunity to represent England, McDermott has named Ben Taly (Broncos), Billy Smith (Roosters), Jayden Brailey (Raiders) and Max King (Bulldogs) as the new faces from the NRL in the England squad.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, John Bateman (Cowboys), Morgan Gannon (Warriors), Matty Nicholson (Raiders), and Alex Seyfarth (Tigers) have all been overlooked.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve enjoyed the process of looking throughout Super League and the NRL for players who could potentially play for England in the 2026 World Cup,\u201c England coach Brian McDermott said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is clear there is a raft of talent available at our disposal and it\u2019s encouraging to see the sort of player who could be lining up for us in a few months\u2019 time.\u201c<\/p>\n
Victor Radley has been named in the squad.Source: Supplied Source Known<\/p>\n
Other new faces in the squad include Caleb Hamlin-Uele (the brother of Sharks forward Braden) and Wigan Warriors duo Sam Walters and Zach Eckersley.<\/p>\n
\u201cCaleb Hamlin-Uele, who was born in Auckland but qualifies for England through heritage, is another who ticks that box,\u201d McDermott continued.<\/p>\n
\u201cFrom the NRL, there\u2019s further players who I have seen first-hand who are performing well and who have expressed a desire to represent England via the heritage rule: Max King, Jayden Brailey, Billy Smith and Ben Talty. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s an exciting time as we continue our preparations and build-up towards the opening game against Tonga. <\/p>\n
\u201cObviously, this is still just the first group of players we\u2019ve selected: there is still plenty of opportunity for others to play their way into contention before the World Cup squad is announced.\u201d<\/p>\n
ENGLAND\u2019S 38-MAN PERFORMANCE PROGRAMME SQUAD<\/p>\n
Junior Nsemba, Ethan Havard, Luke Thompson, Sam Walters, Brad O\u2019Neill, Jake Wardle, Harry Smith, Zach Eckersley (all Wigan Warriors), Kallum Watkins, Mikolaj Oledzki, Ash Handley, Jake Connor (all Leeds Rhinos), Ben Currie, Danny Walker, George Williams, Matty Ashton (all Warrington Wolves), Kai Pearce-Paul (Wests Tigers), Dean Hadley, Jez Litten, Mikey Lewis (all Hull KR), Morgan Smithies, Jayden Brailey (both Canberra Raiders), Victor Radley, Billy Smith (both Sydney Roosters), AJ Brimson (Gold Coast Titans), Jack Welsby, Alex Walmsley, Daryl Clark, Harry Robertson (all St Helens), Morgan Knowles, Herbie Farnworth (both Dolphins), Mike McMeeken, Caleb Hamlin-Uele, Jake Trueman, Tom Johnstone (all Wakefield), Max King (Canterbury Bulldogs), Ben Talty (Brisbane Broncos), Dom Young (Newcastle Knights)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NSW Blues star Ethan Strange has confirmed that he has turned down an approach to represent England as…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":481652,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[111,139,69,213],"class_list":["post-481651","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/481651","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=481651"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/481651\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/481652"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=481651"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=481651"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=481651"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}