Wheelchair rugby league Ashes: Lewis King to captain England for Australia tour
World Cup winner Lewis King will captain England when they travel to Australia for the wheelchair rugby league Ashes series in October.
London Roosters’ King, 40, takes on the role with regular captain Tom Halliwell ruled out of the tour with a shoulder injury.
Halifax Panthers player Jack Brown, who spent four years coaching in Australia, has been named vice-captain.
King, from Kent, was left partially paralysed in 2009, aged 24, after being diagnosed with a blood clot on his spine, which required a 21-hour emergency operation.
He began playing wheelchair rugby league in 2016 with Dartford-based club Argonauts, and soon broke into the England squad.
“Wheelchair rugby league is a special sport and the England squad are a special group, so being appointed as captain is just incredible – especially for a bloke from Dartford who wouldn’t have known anything about rugby league growing up,” he said.
King scored the third of England’s five tries – with Brown getting two – when they beat France dramatically 28-24 at Manchester Central to win the Wheelchair Rugby League World Cup in November 2022.
England head coach Tom Coyd said: “To tell Lewis King that he will captain his country was an immense privilege for me.
“The journey he has been on since suffering a life-changing injury 16 years ago is inspirational.”
Brown, a non-disabled player, first took up wheelchair basketball and then wheelchair rugby league to share a sport on an equal level with his younger brother Harry, who lost both legs to meningitis as a baby.
Wheelchair rugby league’s international laws allow two of a team’s five players on the court to be non-disabled.
England will face Australia on 30 October and 2 November, with both matches on the Gold Coast.
They will warm up with two matches against state sides – New South Wales in Sydney on 24 October and Queensland on the Sunshine Coast on 27 October.
Coyd named his 10-player squad for the tour on 7 August, including uncapped pair Luis Domingos, of Castleford Tigers, and Finlay O’Neill, of Halifax.
England squad: Seb Bechara (Catalans Dragons), Mason Billington (London Roosters), Wayne Boardman (Halifax Panthers), Jack Brown (Halifax Panthers, vice-capt), Nathan Collins (Leeds Rhinos), Joe Coyd (London Roosters), Luis Domingos (Castleford Tigers), Rob Hawkins (Halifax Panthers), Lewis King (London Roosters, capt), Finlay O’Neill (Halifax Panthers)