{"id":217282,"date":"2025-10-22T06:58:08","date_gmt":"2025-10-22T06:58:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/217282\/"},"modified":"2025-10-22T06:58:08","modified_gmt":"2025-10-22T06:58:08","slug":"joe-burgess-journal-entry-that-came-true-in-fairytale-england-return-weird","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/217282\/","title":{"rendered":"Joe Burgess’ journal entry that came true in fairytale England return – ‘weird!’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Joe Burgess’ journal entry that came true in fairytale England return\"JoeJoe Burgess last represented England in 2015, winning three caps that year against France and New Zealand.<\/p>\n

After a fairytale treble-winning season with Hull KR, Joe Burgess has capped off a remarkable personal resurgence by earning his first England call-up in a decade – fulfilling a goal he quietly scribbled in his first-time journal back in pre-season.<\/p>\n

The flying winger was just 21 when he last represented his country, earning three caps in 2015, including in the home series against New Zealand.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s been a long road since. Burgess spent time in the NRL with the Sydney Roosters and South Sydney Rabbitohs in 2016 before returning to Super League with boyhood club Wigan Warriors. He later joined Salford Red Devils but left the club under a cloud at the start of 2024, and then rediscovered top form at Hull KR<\/a> under head coach Willie Peters.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think for a good five or six years, I was losing a bit of hope to play for England again,\u201d revealed Burgess.<\/p>\n

\u201cThen I had a good year at Salford, I think it was 2022, and I thought maybe I have a chance.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe past two years, I\u2019ve really cracked on, changed a few things about my life on and off the pitch, and it\u2019s been so rewarding.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rugby league<\/a>\u2019s Ashes return this Saturday for the first time in 22 years, kicking off at Wembley with a UK-record crowd expected.<\/p>\n

For Burgess, the series was a key motivation back in pre-season – one that drove him to help the Robins claim all three major titles in 2025.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs soon as the Ashes series was getting talked up, I actually wrote at the start of this year – and I\u2019m not usually the type of person to start journals – but one of my goals was to get in the England squad, and it\u2019s weird how it\u2019s worked out,\u201d Burgess smiled.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you do things like that – writing it down – and backing it up, it’s like why didn\u2019t I do this six or seven years ago? I\u2019m so grateful.\u201d<\/p>\n

The 31-year-old has been in scintillating form, scoring 24 tries in 25 appearances across all competitions this season. He\u2019ll now compete with Wakefield Trinity’s Tom Johnstone and Newcastle Knights\u2019 Dom Young for the two wing spots to face the Kangaroos.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is the best year of my career,\u201d Burgess admitted. \u201cIt\u2019s going a million miles an hour at the minute. It\u2019s been nuts. I\u2019ve had good years, but this is the most consistent I\u2019ve been from start to finish.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kevin Walters has already confirmed his Australia side, including four debutants. Brisbane Broncos superstar Reece Walsh will win his first cap at full-back, picked ahead of Penrith Panthers\u2019 Dylan Edwards, and he will be joined by fellow first-timers Gehamat Shibasaki, Keaon Koloamatangi and former Wallabies star Mark Nawaqanitawase.<\/p>\n

Burgess will also come up against his club coach Peters across the three-Test series, who joined Australia\u2019s coaching staff for the first time ahead of the Ashes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Joe Burgess’ journal entry that came true in fairytale England returnJoe Burgess last represented England in 2015, winning…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":217283,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[20372,5903,20370,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-217282","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-hull-kr","tag-rugby","tag-rugby-league","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217282","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=217282"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217282\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/217283"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=217282"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=217282"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=217282"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}