Kallum Watkins has been called up to England’s Rugby League World Cup squad as a late replacement after Morgan Smithies was forced to withdraw through injury.<\/p>\n
The 35-year-old Leeds Rhinos second-row forward is set to take part in his fourth World Cup having previously featured in 2013, 2017 and 2022.<\/p>\n
The loss of lock and second-row forward Smithies, who is set to join Perth Bears for the 2027 NRL season, comes as a blow to England.<\/p>\n
However, in Watkins, head coach Brian McDermott has found a replacement he knows well having previously coached him during a trophy-laden spell at Leeds.<\/p>\n
“It’s really unfortunate what has happened to Morgan with an injury picked up in training,” said McDermott.<\/p>\n
“Morgan has been great since we entered camp. He’s a real team player and his work ethic and toughness are qualities that we will certainly miss.<\/p>\n
“Kallum enjoyed a terrific season with Leeds this year and has been part of our England performance programme building into this World Cup.<\/p>\n
“I look forward to welcoming him into camp as we step up our preparations.”<\/p>\n
Watkins, who has 32 caps, is set to arrive in Perth before England’s World Cup opener against Tonga on Saturday (10:05 BST) but will not play.<\/p>\n
He started his career as a centre before shifting into the pack in recent years and will be available for England’s other group matches against France and Papua New Guinea.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Kallum Watkins has been called up to England’s Rugby League World Cup squad as a late replacement after…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":802482,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[5903,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-802481","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\/802481","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=802481"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/802481\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/802482"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=802481"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=802481"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=802481"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}