Four years after England’s unforgettable Wheelchair World Cup triumph in Manchester, the defending champions head to Australia determined to do it all again.

THE trophy was lifted, tears were shed and drinks were shared.

England had won the World Cup, with more than 4,500 in attendance at Manchester Central and a peak TV audience of 1.3 million on the BBC.

It was wheelchair rugby league’s first true breakthrough moment, and felt like the beginning of something more.

For a time, it was. The Princess of Wales hosted the team at Hampton Court Palace. Stars were invited to the Sports Personality of the Year awards and the Royal Box at Wimbledon. Head coach Tom Coyd, along with captain Tom Halliwell and team-mates James Simpson-Hill and Seb Bechara, received honours.

However, slowly but surely, life got back to normal for these players, who still play the game for free, and the sport as a whole, albeit with a surge in participation, a host of new clubs set up and added profile through the broadcast of its major finals.

That’s the backdrop to England’s trip to Australia, as they seek to defend the World Cup crown taken from France four years ago.

“It’s a cliché, but it’s been a rollercoaster,” says Coyd, who remains coach as well as now having a full-time role as the Rugby Football League’s head of wheelchair pathways.

“If we’re being honest, we didn’t really have a plan after the last World Cup and we were flying by the seat of our pants, taking everything as it came.

“We did loads of cool stuff, we had once-in-a-lifetime opportunities to interact with the people who make the front pages.

“Our guys don’t do this for a living and they’re not used to being stars. We had flashes of that level of profile, and that’s tricky to manage.

“The guys don’t want to behave like stars but are also thrust into that responsibility from time to time. We weren’t ready to deal with the challenges that came with that, and that’s why our form has gone up and down over the years on the field.

“But we’ve ended up in a position where we know exactly what our mentality needs to be to go to the World Cup, win it again and be back-to-back world champions.”

Their form has been thus: successive two-legged series against the French, in 2023 and 2024, were both tied one-apiece, then the side travelled to Australia last autumn and won two tough games of an Ashes series.

Behind that, much has gone on, as reflected by the fact that of England’s ten-player squad for this World Cup, five were part of their winning side on home soil four years ago, and five are new to the set-up.

Out have gone Halliwell, Bechara, Simpson-Hill, who will feature for Scotland in this year’s tournament, Wayne Boardman, Adam Rigby and Dec Roberts, leaving Jack Brown, Nathan Collins, Joe Coyd, Rob Hawkins and new skipper Lewis King.

Halifax winger Hawkins and London forward King made their England debuts in 2019, while Collins has been a key pivot in the side since the 2017 World Cup.

Coyd, younger brother of coach Tom and a dynamic forward, will be embarking on a fourth World Cup, but only one has been there from the very beginning.

That’s Brown, who, like Coyd, is able-bodied and a dynamic force in the middle of the pitch.

Alongside his brother Harry, who went on to become a wheelchair basketball star, Brown was part of the squad which travelled to Australia for the first tournament in 2008, just three years after the game was introduced in England.

Back then it was part of a ‘Festival of World Cups’ which also included the women’s event plus university, police and defence tournaments.

Four teams took part and after round-robin matches, England beat a ‘Barbarians’ side of Pacific heritage in the semi-finals, then Australia, who had eliminated France, 44-12 in the final.

There were no magazine covers for the team back then, with Brown saying: “I don’t think anyone knew we were there.

“The first one was a completely different entity. I watch back videos of 2008 and it’s like a different sport to me. Everyone is getting better, the tactics change, rule changes happen.

“The backing we get now, and mixing in with the men’s and women’s, it’s an absolute privilege. If you’d asked the 18-year-old kid back then where this would be now, he wouldn’t have had a clue. He’d probably have worked a bit harder!”

The three tournaments were only officially brought together as one in 2022, which was the next time England won the title. Between times, there were two standalone summer events and two agonising final defeats to the French – 42-40 at Gillingham’s Medway Park in 2013, when Ireland, Scotland and Wales all joined the party, then 38-34 in Perpignan four years later, in a seven-team tournament which also featured Italy and Spain.

An eight-team event in 2022, with the USA making their debut, was the biggest and best yet in so many ways, not least for the hosts.

Brown scored 17 tries on England’s way to glory, taking him to 54 in World Cups – unsurprisingly a record. Back then he was based in Queensland, coaching more than playing, but he returned to Yorkshire two years ago and has helped Halifax win two successive trebles, while observing the rising standards.

“I tried to keep fit but ultimately it boiled down to if I wanted to secure my position for this World Cup, I needed to be present and working hard,” he explains.

“I’ve had great success the last two years, and the levels at England are just going up and up. To be part of that has really fuelled the passion I knew I always had for the sport.

“Our coach Wayne (Boardman, still also playing at club level) does a great job and we’ve been lucky enough to get a double treble, but that top four is so strong with Wigan, Leeds and London.

“The level in Super League is so much more competitive and so much better for getting the best performance out of the players individually.”

England have benefited to the tune of some new stars coming into this World Cup.

The powerful Tristan Norfolk has grown over the past four years, first with Hull FC and now Leeds, while Chris Haynes has done likewise with improving Sheffield.

But the other three players selected weren’t even playing the sport when Halliwell’s try gave England a 28-24 victory over the French in Manchester.

London winger Mason Billington made his England debut in 2023 after his first season as a Super League player, and Halifax’s Finlay O’Neill repeated the feat last year.

Luis Domingos, meanwhile, had only played a year at Championship level with Castleford when he played in the Ashes, and is only better now for a top-flight season at Sheffield.

Coach Coyd admits: “If you’d asked me two years ago if I thought we’d have a 50 per cent turnover in the squad, I’d probably have said no, but that’s a signal of how strong our development has been.

“That goes back to the RFL, and to all the volunteers who are coaching throughout the pyramid.

“Mason Billington is only in his third full season playing wheelchair rugby league and has undergone an incredible development at London Roosters.

“Luis Domingos has just played his first full season of Super League, having made the Ashes squad last year from the Championship, and his rise has been incredible at Sheffield.

“Tristan Norfolk was shortlisted for Wheels of Steel this year (which was won by Hawkins) and has had an incredible year, he’s in the best form I’ve ever seen him in.

“Chris Haynes is another Sheffield lad who has been knocking on the door in the last two years and is getting his shot at a playing jersey at the World Cup.

“Finlay O’Neill came on tour with us last year, breaking into the Ashes squad after winning Super League Young Player of the Year, and his development has been really exciting for me – while it’s disappointing for Tom Halliwell to miss out after being a key player at the last World Cup, Finlay has a different skill set to fulfil a similar role.”

Few come with a more varied background than Domingos, who was born in Portugal and first moved to the UK as a teenager.

A wheelchair user after contracting polio, he started playing wheelchair basketball with Leeds Spiders, a journey which took him on a professional career across Europe and made him a Portuguese international.

“I played in Italy for a season, in Varese, close to Milan. Then I went to Spain in Ferrol, near Vigo, and Burgos for two years, then Portugal in Porto.

“Basketball in Portugal is massive. We love football, we have Ronaldo, but we are a country that loves basketball.”

He had a taste of rugby league with Leeds Rhinos, who shared facilities with the basketball side, but he only revisited it last year with Castleford, after returning to England to study.

“It was quite easy for me to transition – I just had to learn the game,” he says.

“Basketball is non-stop, you have to run everywhere. Rugby is more composed, and timing is essential. There were just tiny things.

“When I came back (to England) I found rugby and it feels like home. For me, it’s just where I feel comfortable, where I have my family with me – my team-mates and my coach are family.

“Basketball will still have a place in my heart and I play as a hobby, but for now my heart tells me to stick to rugby, experience what it has to offer, and go with the flow.”

It’s taking him back to Australia, one year on from his international debut.

That Ashes series was the last time England played, due partly to a dispute with the French federation, but don’t mistake that for being underprepared.

England run a full, structured wheelchair programme which involves regular sessions through the year – including at St George’s Park, the home of the England football teams – which include practice matches at high intensity, something unthinkable in the men’s game especially.

“We are really fortunate to be in this position,” admits Tom Coyd. “We’ve had seven two-day camps this year and the guys give up their weekends for that.

“In the men’s game they struggle to get that quality time because of how rigorous the domestic season is. The women get a bit more time to get together, but the wheelchair game probably has the most flexibility and availability for that.

“Trust me, we look to make the most of that. This year has been amazing, and it’s also been the most demanding Wheelchair Super League season.”

The World Cup is again an eight-team affair, with France the most likely rivals for the trophy, but Australia, hosting the whole tournament in Wollongong, will also be at their heels.

Those tests will likely come after group games against Wales, the USA and Ireland, as Coyd and co chase the high of four years ago.

“It’s one of the best things you can experience as a human,” says the coach, “to work on a project together with a bunch of people you know intimately and develop a genuine love for, to take on a challenge that’s really difficult against other groups who love each other as well, and to come out on top.

“There’s satisfaction and relief that you achieved what you set out to do, and all the time and energy you put into it paid off. That’s about as good as it gets.

“When it’s all done for me – hopefully a long time away – I’m sure I’ll look back on these experiences as the highlights of my life, and I hope that will be the same for the other staff and the players.

“That’s the feeling that we’re chasing. It is the journey as well, it’s not just the end result.”

First published in Rugby League World magazine, Issue 526 (November 2026)