The 2025 England wheelchair rugby league tour of Australia was a wheelchair rugby league tour of Australia by the England national wheelchair rugby league team. The tour was announced in December 2024 by the International Rugby League, and saw four matches played including a two-game wheelchair rugby league Ashes series contested by the two nations.
England are the defending champions after winning the inaugural Wheelchair Ashes 2âÂÂ0 in 2019, in addition to beating the North Queensland, Queensland, and New South Wales representative teams, going the whole tour undefeated.
The NRL used the two tests to start and end a four-day festival of wheelchair rugby league which as well as the test matches included the inaugural NRL Wheelchair Championship.
The Ashes were won by England who repeated their feat of 2019, by winning both games against Australia as well as defeating New South Wales and Queensland.
In April 2025, the RFL hosted a wheelchair rugby league festival in Nottingham to scout potential new players for the tour. The following month, 24 players made up of invitees from the festival and England regulars contested an intra-squad tri-series tournament in York.
Following the tri-series tournament, a national performance squad and a "Future of England" squad were selected for training camps on 28 June at St George's Park and on 15 June at the University of York Sport's Centre respectively.
National Performance Squad:
Future of England Squad:
The Future of England camp involved an intra-squad friendly and saw Billington, Boardman, Domingos, Edwards, Haynes, Holmes, Norfolk, O'Neill, and Owen were advanced to the national performance squad for a second training session and a behind closed doors trial in York on 13 July.
The touring squad was announced on 7 August and will have a final training session on 31 August.
Ahead of the tour, Queensland head coach Cameron Sullivan joined Brett Clark's coaching staff as an assistant coach.
The England squad for the tour was announced on 7 August. Captaincy was announced on 31 August. Squad numbers were confirmed on 19 October, the day the squad flew to Australia.
The Australia squad was named on 17 September. Daniel Anstey is the only player who was not in the Australian squad at the 2021 Wheelchair Rugby League World Cup.
Fixtures for the tour were confirmed on 18 May 2025.
England began their tour with a dominant win over New South Wales, before a tightly contested match against Queensland three days later.
In the first of the Ashes tests, England opened strongly scoring 16 points in the first eight minutes. Australia quickly got back into the game bringing the score to 28 points to 26 in favour of the hosts with a quarter of the match to go. The final 23 minutes however saw five unanswered tries from England resulting in a convincing win for the tourists.
In the second and final test, Australia saw a controlling first half performance, scoring inside two minutes. An initial England response of two tries was silenced by a further four from Australia with England only managing one more in the half. Australia led 30 point to 18 at half time. However, unlike the first test, Australia were unable to carry their momentum. England scored five tries in 25 minutes of the second half with Australian managing just the two to bring the scores level. A final try from England with two minutes to go won the game and the Ashes for the tourists.
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Both Ashes games were streamed live by the NRL.