{"id":231847,"date":"2025-10-29T10:17:09","date_gmt":"2025-10-29T10:17:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/231847\/"},"modified":"2025-10-29T10:17:09","modified_gmt":"2025-10-29T10:17:09","slug":"reece-walsh-the-justin-bieber-of-rugby-league-tormenting-england-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/231847\/","title":{"rendered":"Reece Walsh: The ‘Justin Bieber of rugby league’ tormenting England"},"content":{"rendered":"

Walsh was a one-man indicator of the gap in quality between the two sides in London last Saturday, particularly in the opening minutes of the second half<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In Australia’s first attack after the interval, Walsh carried the ball 80 metres following a slip by England’s much-vaunted scrum-half Mikey Lewis. While England resisted the initial thrust, the ground gained provided the platform for Australia to score a killer second try of the match.<\/p>\n

Walsh had earlier scored the opening try of the series, completing a sweeping team move with a swan dive to elevate the world number one side following a scrappy opening 20 minutes which had given England false hope.<\/p>\n

And he added the coup de grace with his second and Australia’s fourth try, sandwiching two scores by Angus Crichton and sealing a victory that brought the hosts down to earth with a sickening thump in front of 60,000 fans at Wembley.<\/p>\n

V’landys said: “He’s a champion player, so people want to see those, even if you’ve got no interest in rugby league. You’ll be attracted to someone like Reece Walsh.”<\/p>\n

Walsh is not all flashy scores either. His defensive play was essential in providing the platform for Australia to resist England before they went through the gears.<\/p>\n

He has been compared to a pop star and certainly is liable to a few unconventional antics. He often takes to the field with painted nails, which he decorates to bond with four-year-old daughter Leila.<\/p>\n

He went viral on social media last month over a video showing him drinking water out of a toilet bowl, joking that it helped his muscle recovery after games.<\/p>\n

The toilet was newly installed, and had not been used, although his club still had to hurry out a ‘don’t try this at home’ statement.<\/p>\n

“I think it comes with the territory,” V’Landys said of Walsh’s off-field activities. <\/p>\n

“He’s a young guy. And in reality, they haven’t been that serious. I mean, being a plumber, I guess is a good profession, but he’s like all the rest of us. <\/p>\n

“He’s going to make mistakes in life and you have to learn from them.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Walsh was a one-man indicator of the gap in quality between the two sides in London last Saturday,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":231725,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[5903,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-231847","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-rugby","8":"tag-rugby","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/231847","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=231847"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/231847\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/231725"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=231847"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=231847"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=231847"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}