King to captain England for wheelchair Ashes

When England travel to Australia for the Ashes series of wheelchair rugby league in October, World Cup winner Lewis King will be their captain.

King, 40, joins the London Roosters in the role after Tom Halliwell, the team’s regular captain, was sidelined with a shoulder injury.

Jack Brown, a Halifax Panthers player who spent four years coaching in Australia, has been appointed vice-captain.

King, a 24 year old man from Kent, was diagnosed with a blood clot on his spine in 2009, which required a 21-hour emergency operation and left him partially paralyzed.

He soon made the England squad when he first joined Dartford-based club Argonauts in 2016 and began playing wheelchair rugby league.

Being appointed captain is incredible, especially for a Dartford bloke who wouldn’t have known anything about rugby league growing up because wheelchair rugby is a special sport and the England squad are a special group.

When England defeated France 28-24 at Manchester Central to win the Wheelchair Rugby League World Cup in November 2022, King scored the third of their five tries, with Brown scoring the other.

For me, it was an incredible honor to announce Lewis King would take over as England’s head coach.

He has experienced inspirational growth since suffering a transformative injury 16 years ago.

To compete in a sport on an equal level with his younger brother Harry, who lost both legs to meningitis as a baby, Brown, a non-disabled player, first started wheelchair basketball and then wheelchair rugby league.

Two of a team’s five players are disabled, according to international regulations in wheelchair rugby league.

On October 30 and November 2, England and Australia will play on the Gold Coast, respectively.

They’ll play two matches against state rivals, Queensland on the Sunshine Coast on October 24 and New South Wales on October 24 in Sydney.

On August 7th, Coyd named his 10-person team for the trip, which included uncapped players Finlay O’Neill and Luis Domingos of Castleford Tigers.