{"id":248860,"date":"2025-11-07T07:11:16","date_gmt":"2025-11-07T07:11:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/248860\/"},"modified":"2025-11-07T07:11:16","modified_gmt":"2025-11-07T07:11:16","slug":"ex-england-man-makes-blessing-in-disguise-ashes-point-amid-clear-weakness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/248860\/","title":{"rendered":"Ex-England man makes ‘blessing in disguise’ Ashes point amid clear weakness"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"England\"\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

England\u2019s Ashes struggles could turn out to be a \u2018blessing in disguise\u2019 ahead of the World Cup next year.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s the belief of former England hooker Josh Hodgson, who is tipping this series to act as something of a wake up call as they begin to look ahead to next year\u2019s tournament down under.<\/p>\n

Shaun Wane\u2019s side currently find themselves 2-0 down in the Ashes series after suffering defeats at Wembley Stadium and Everton\u2019s brand new Hill Dickinson Stadium. Daryl Clark\u2019s last ditch effort against Australia at Wembley remains the only try England have scored in the series, too, with their attack drawing plenty of criticism over the last week and a half.<\/p>\n

As such, they know improvements have to come this week if they are to avoid the embarrassment of a 3-0 series whitewash on home soil.<\/p>\n

Of course, England have beaten Samoa and Tonga in recent Test series, but they have been some way short of the standard set by Australia this autumn. And, with the 2026 World Cup looming, Hodgson is hopeful that this series could provide an indication of how much work they have to do over the next 12 months.<\/p>\n

Josh Hodgson sees Ashes positives for England despite \u2018hard to watch\u2019 comment<\/p>\n

\u201cMe being an optimist, I think this could be a blessing in disguise for the World Cup next year,\u201d Hodgson said, per Fox Sports.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt gives us a bit of a gauge on where we are at as a side internationally. We see sides like Tonga and Samoa all looking like good footy sides.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt gives us a little bit of a wake up call as to the standard we want to get to if we want to beat these top sides.\u201d<\/p>\n

On England\u2019s attacking struggles, Hodgson added: \u201cYou\u2019re putting your x-factor players in the side. We\u2019ve struggled for points so let\u2019s put someone in the side that has points in them and who will open the game up.<\/p>\n

\u201cEngland will be really disappointed in their attack. It was only one dive over late in the first Test and now in this second Test, we didn\u2019t score a try. They\u2019re not clinical enough with the ball.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s hard to watch. You can see they\u2019re trying but they just look like a team that is very disjointed which is hard to see.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you\u2019re trying to chase a game and you\u2019re not used to playing alongside each other, it makes it difficult.\u201d<\/p>\n

Serious About Rugby League has launched a brand new podcast which can be watched in full on our YouTube channel here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"England\u2019s Ashes struggles could turn out to be a \u2018blessing in disguise\u2019 ahead of the World Cup next…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":248861,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[5903,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-248860","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-rugby","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/248860","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=248860"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/248860\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/248861"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=248860"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=248860"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=248860"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}