{"id":813748,"date":"2026-10-25T20:06:10","date_gmt":"2026-10-25T20:06:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/813748\/"},"modified":"2026-10-25T20:06:10","modified_gmt":"2026-10-25T20:06:10","slug":"england-stars-bizarre-shirt-at-rugby-league-world-cup-explained","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/813748\/","title":{"rendered":"England star&#8217;s bizarre shirt at Rugby League World Cup explained"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Jodie Cunningham had to have her number drawn on the back of her replacement shirt during <a href=\"https:\/\/www.loverugbyleague.com\/club\/england\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">England<\/a>\u2019s defeat to Australia due to an unexpected instruction from the match commissioner.<\/p>\n<p>Trailblazing skipper Cunningham, who will retire once England\u2019s World Cup campaign concludes, began Saturday\u2019s game against the Jillaroos on the bench.<\/p>\n<p>Having entered the action in the first half, she had to be withdrawn for a Head Injury Assessment (HIA) just minutes later, with blood pouring following a nasty-looking collision.<\/p>\n<p>Eventually, having passed that HIA, she returned to the field early on in the second half and completed the game as Stuart Barrow\u2019s side were beaten 78-0 by the reigning world champions.<\/p>\n<p>As St Helens icon Cunningham returned though, she did so with her number #14 drawn onto the back of her shirt in marker pen \u2013 something which caught plenty of traction online after the event.<\/p>\n<p>Why Jodie Cunningham wore a shirt with number drawn on in defeat to Australia<\/p>\n<p>When Cunningham went off for her HIA, she was required to change into a blood shirt, which is essentially a spare shirt carried by medical departments in case any player gets blood on their original jersey.<\/p>\n<p>That process is no different to Super League, in which a blood shirt is always blank \u2013 with no number printed on the back so that it can be used by any player required.<\/p>\n<p>It is not stated within the International Rugby League (IRL) rules, and wasn\u2019t stated in the tournament manual for the 2026 Rugby League World Cup, that blood shirts had to be numbered.<\/p>\n<p>However, the match commissioner in the women\u2019s clash between England and Australia informed staff that Cunningham\u2019s blood shirt would have to be numbered as she prepared to re-enter the field of play following her HIA.<\/p>\n<p>Accordingly, a scramble resulted in the improvisation of Cunningham\u2019s #14 being drawn onto the back of her shirt in marker pen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jodie Cunningham had to have her number drawn on the back of her replacement shirt during England\u2019s defeat&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":813749,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[5903,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-813748","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\/813748","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=813748"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/813748\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/813749"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=813748"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=813748"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=813748"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}