Women's Ashes
Test 1
Tests 2 and 3
Fixtures to be confirmed
The 2025 England Lions and Lionesses tour of Australia was originally scheduled be a joint tour of Australia by the England men's and England women's national rugby league teams. [1]
In 2024, talks began regarding moving the tour to England, thus making the Australia men's and Australia women's national teams the tourists. The tour will see the return of The Ashes and will occur following the conclusions of the domestic seasons in the UK and Australia. [2]
Following France withdrawing as host and the subsequent cancellation of the 2025 Rugby League World Cup, [3] [4] the International Rugby League saw need to revamp the international calendar. The confirmation of the replacement 2026 Rugby League World Cup came with it a selection of new and returning international rugby league competitions and tours between 2025 and 2030, including the return of The Ashes. The tournament return will begin with England's 2025 tour of Australia, which will see the inaugural women's Ashes being played, and Australia's 2028 tour of England. The 2025 Ashes will be the first since the 2003 Kangaroo tour of Great Britain and France. [1] [5]
Great Britain were Australia's traditional Ashes opponents, having played against each other from 1908 to 2003. The Great Britain side started to disbanded started with the 1995 Rugby League World Cup in favour of the four home nations playing as individuals sides. This process was completed with the 2007 All Golds Tour, the centenary of the first ever international tour.
In 2024, the Rugby Football League considered the return of the Great Britain team for the 2025 tour, and possibly all future away tours, with the hope that the return of a traditional sporting brand would help connect more people to the team. [6] However, in September of that year, the governing body confirmed during the new England kit launch that England would continue the 2025 tour as planned. [7] A fan poll was conducted in regards to this subject. [8]
In 2023, ahead of the 2024 season, Australia's National Rugby League launched the Rugby League Las Vegas event to open their domestic season. [9] [10] For the 2025, this was expanded to the UK's Super League with one regular season fixture being played. [11] [12] Further, the 2025 event will also feature a women's test match between Australia and England, which was later confirmed to be match one of the inaugural women's Ashes Series with the remaining two to be completed during the tour. [13]
On 28 October 2024, The Guardian revealed that talks were underway between Rugby League Commercial (a branch of the Rugby Football League) and the Australian Rugby League Commission regarding the men's games being moved to England, with venues in Lancashire, Yorkshire, and London being considered for the three test games. [2] BBC Sport attributed the host change to Australia now hosting the 2026 Rugby League World Cup, originally to be hosted by France in 2025. [14]
Pending confirmation of a change of host, Rugby League Commercial will be looking to stage the three tests in Lancashire, London, and Yorkshire. [2] For the Lancashire venue, Wigan Warriors's Brick Community Stadium was reported as one of the favourites [15] along with Everton's Bramley-Moore Dock Stadium. [16] In London, Wembley Stadium and the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium were reporting as being the front runners. [16] Finally, Leeds United's Elland Road and Hull FC's MKM Stadium were reported as the likely venues for the Yorkshire match. [17]
Fixtures to be confirmed
Fixtures to be confirmed
The Ashes series, similar to the cricket series of the same name, was a best-of-three series of test matches between Australia and Great Britain national rugby league football teams. It had been contested 39 times from 1908 until 2003 largely with hosting rights alternating between the two countries. Since 1973, Australia has won a record thirteen consecutive Ashes series.
The Great Britain national rugby league team represents Great Britain in rugby league. Administered by the Rugby Football League (RFL), the team is nicknamed The Lions.
The Wales national rugby league team represents Wales in representative rugby league football matches. Currently the team is ranked 17th in the IRL World Rankings. The team was run under the auspices of the Rugby Football League, but an independent body, Wales Rugby League, now runs the team from Cardiff. Six Welsh players have been entered into the Rugby Football League Hall of Fame.
Wigan Warriors are an English professional Rugby League club based in Wigan, Greater Manchester. Wigan Warriors are the most successful club in the history of world rugby having won 163 trophies in total.
Cuthwyn Ellery Hanley is an English former rugby league player and coach. Over a nineteen-year professional career (1978–1997), he played for Bradford Northern, Wigan, Balmain, Western Suburbs and Leeds. He won 36 caps for Great Britain, captaining the team from 1988 to 1992, and 2 for England. Nicknamed 'Mr Magic' and 'The Black Pearl', he played most often as a stand-off or loose forward after starting out as a centre or wing.
Kristian John Radlinski MBE is an English former professional rugby league footballer who played mainly as a fullback. He is currently CEO of Wigan Warriors whom he played his entire professional career for, making over 300 appearances between 1993 and 2006, and also represented England and Great Britain at international level.
Alexander James Murphy OBE is an English former professional rugby league footballer, and coach of the mid to late 20th century. Known as 'Murphy the Mouth' and regarded as one of the greatest halfbacks in the history of the British game, he represented Great Britain in 27 Tests and his club career was played at three clubs, St. Helens, Leigh and Warrington. Murphy assumed a player-coach role of the last two clubs and expanded his coaching role toward the end of his playing career to include clubs such as Wigan, Salford and Huddersfield. He later returned to both Warrington and Leigh respectively as a football manager. He was the first player to captain three different clubs to victory in the Challenge Cup Final.
Gary John Connolly is a former professional rugby league footballer who played in the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s as a fullback and centre for St Helens, Canterbury Bulldogs, Wigan Warriors, Leeds Rhinos and for the Great Britain national side. He also played rugby union for Harlequins, Orrell and Irish side Munster.
Joseph Paul Lydon is an English former professional rugby league footballer and rugby union coach. He played during the 1980s and 1990s as a fullback, wing, centre, or stand-off for Widnes, Wigan and Eastern Suburbs. He also represented Lancashire, and won 30 caps for Great Britain.
Andrew Gregory is an English former professional rugby league footballer. A Great Britain international representative scrum-half, he is an inductee of the Wigan Hall of Fame. He was the first player to win five Challenge Cup Final winners medals, first player to play in eight Challenge Cup finals and one of only two players to have played in six Ashes series against Australia, the other being Garry Schofield.
The Rugby League World Cup is an international rugby league tournament contested by the top national men's representative teams. The tournament is administered by the International Rugby League and was first held in France in 1954, which was the first World Cup held for any form of rugby football.
Michael Sullivan was an English professional rugby league footballer and coach who played as a wing. He started his playing career at Huddersfield before joining Wigan for a record transfer fee in 1957. He won two Challenge Cups with the club, and won a third Challenge Cup medal with St Helens after signing with the club for another record fee in 1961.
Rugby league is played across England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales, but its heartland in parts of Northern England is where the sport is most popular, and is where the majority of professional clubs are based. The sport was first established in the George Hotel, Huddersfield, where 22 clubs split from the Rugby Football Union to form the Northern Rugby Football Union.
The 2026 Men's Rugby League World Cup will be the seventeenth staging of the Rugby League World Cup, and will be one of three major tournaments part of the 2026 Rugby League World Cup.
The Rugby League Pacific Championship is a rugby league tournament for national teams in Oceania. Its inaugural tournament was in 2019 as the "Oceania Cup".
The Rugby League World Cup is an international rugby league tournament currently played every four years. The first tournament was held in 1954, hosted by France who had pushed for such a tournament to be approved. Since the first edition, 14 others have been held at sporadic intervals.
The 2026 Rugby League World Cup (RLWC2026) is a collection of world cups in the sport of rugby league and is a replacement tournament for the 2025 Rugby League World Cup.
Rugby League Las Vegas is an annual event held at the Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas showcasing the sport of rugby league. The event was started in 2024 by Australia's National Rugby League (NRL) before being joined by Super League clubs from the United Kingdom in 2025.
The 2025 season will be the Wigan Warriors's 45th consecutive season playing in England's top division of rugby league. They will compete in the 2025 Super League season and the 2025 Challenge Cup.
The Ashes series, similar to the cricket series of the same name, is a best-of-three series of test matches between Australia and England women's national rugby league football teams.
 Rugby league Ashes  /  | |
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| Teams |
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| Men's original series | |
| Men's modern series | |
| Women's series | |