All change. In truth, something had to give following the nature of England\u2019s performance at Wembley last weekend but as Shaun Wane\u2019s side look to send the Ashes to a deciding Test in Leeds next Saturday, there are wholesale changes that the hosts hope will provide a reaction both on and off the field.<\/p>\n
Wembley was underwhelming last weekend on multiple fronts. England limped to a fairly miserable 26-6 defeat, in which they showed little of what had been promised in the build-up to a first Ashes series in 22 years<\/a>. But the atmosphere felt flat, in part due to what Wane\u2019s men delivered, but also due to the fact the stadium wasn\u2019t full.<\/p>\n That changes on Saturday, with Hill Dickinson Stadium sold out months in advance and likely to provide a more boisterous atmosphere, the kind of which should instil some fire into England. Wane admitting this week that returning north represented the chance to play in front of \u201creal rugby league fans\u201d was a Freudian slip, but you sense all involved are relishing the opportunity.<\/p>\n But the England coach has also rung the changes on the pitch too as big-time rugby league returns to Liverpool. Chief among them? The irony of Wane calling on an Australian-born player to salvage the series against the Kangaroos, with AJ Brimson set to be thrown into the heat of battle at full-back for his Test debut on Saturday.<\/p>\n Brimson switched allegiances to England this summer despite representing Queensland at State of Origin level. With an English mother, the 27-year-old spent family holidays in Plymouth and dreamed of honouring that heritage one day. He was forced to watch from the sidelines at Wembley, but is now tasked with salvaging the series.<\/p>\n All of this against the nation who have overlooked him, too. \u201cI\u2019m super-excited,\u201d the Gold Coast Titans player said this week. It\u2019s been a nerve-wracking week but to walk out at this stadium will be incredible. I\u2019ve always loved England, I\u2019ve always loved the England jersey. It\u2019s just something I\u2019ve always wanted to do.<\/p>\n AJ Brimson in action for the Maroons during State of Origin in 2023. Photograph: Mark Kolbe\/Getty Images<\/p>\n \u201cI know I\u2019ve got to earn the respect of not only the players, but the fans and things like that as well. It\u2019s a big thing, to have an Aussie player come out here and play for their country. There\u2019s been a lot of hurdles to jump through to get to this point but we\u2019ve got here in the end.\u201d<\/p>\n England \u2013 or any country, for that matter \u2013 selecting heritage players is nothing new. Sydney Roosters\u2019 Victor Radley would have been a pivotal part of the English pack this autumn had he not made himself unavailable, but the circumstances surrounding Brimson\u2019s debut make this pick all the more intriguing.<\/p>\n There has been some consternation in Australia as to why Brimson was not England\u2019s first-choice full-back anyway given how he regularly performs in the NRL. With the hosts in must-win territory, it is now almost solely on his shoulders to try and live up to the significant billing and help England level the series.<\/p>\n skip past newsletter promotion<\/a><\/p>\n The best of our sports journalism from the past seven days and a heads-up on the weekend\u2019s action<\/p>\n Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain information about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. If you do not have an account, we will create a guest account for you on theguardian.com<\/a> to send you this newsletter. You can complete full registration at any time. For more information about how we use your data see our Privacy Policy<\/a>. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy<\/a> and Terms of Service<\/a> apply.<\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n \u201cIt [last week] puts a bit of a dampener on everything,\u201d Brimson says. \u201cWe were training really well and to lose like that is disappointing but there\u2019s two more games and our full focus goes to this Saturday. It\u2019s do or die now, we\u2019ve got to come up with a win. We were a bit nervous and frantic [at Wembley] \u2013 we don\u2019t want to die wondering. We have to go after them.\u201d<\/p>\n Brimson replaces St Helens full-back Jack Welsby, who pays the price for a below-par display at Wembley, but that is not the only change. It always looked quite foolish for England not to have at least one warm-up game to allow Wane to decipher what his best team was and there is a strong case to suggest, midway through this series, he still does not know.<\/p>\n Quick GuideSecond Test teamsShow<\/p>\n England Brimson; Young, Farnworth, Wardle, Johnstone; Williams, Smith; McMeeken, Litten, Lees, Trout, Pearce-Paul, Knowles. Interchange Lewis, Smithies, Watkins, Walmsley.<\/p>\n Australia Walsh; Nawaqanitawase, Staggs, Shibasaki, Addo-Carr; Munster, Cleary; Collins, Grant, Fa\u2019asuamaleaui, Crichton, Young, Carrigan. Interchange Dearden, Smith, Cotter, Kolomatangi.<\/p>\n Thank you for your feedback.<\/p>\n England will change their full-back, half-back pairing and hooking rotation for Saturday. Harry Smith will come in at scrum-half to partner George Williams, with Mikey Lewis dropping to the bench to allow Jez Litten to start at hooker. Come 5pm on Saturday, it will either look like a masterstroke or a complete mess in front of a raucous northern crowd that will expect a response.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"All change. In truth, something had to give following the nature of England\u2019s performance at Wembley last weekend…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":236145,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[5903,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-236144","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\/236144","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=236144"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236144\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/236145"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=236144"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=236144"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=236144"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}