Tedesco to miss Ashes to attend brother’s wedding

Australia full-back James Tedesco will miss the three-match Test series against England to attend his brother’s wedding.

The former Kangaroos captain – player of the match when they won the World Cup at Old Trafford three years ago – had been set to earn a recall for the tour, having been dropped last October before the Pacific Championship series.

Peter V’landys, chairman of the Australian Rugby League Commission (ARLC), said that Tedesco had been included on a provisional 23-player list for the tour, with the final squad to be named next Monday.

It means that head coach Kevin Walters, appointed in July after Mal Meninga stepped down to take up an NRL club job with Perth Bears, must look at other full-back options.

England face Australia in three matches – at Wembley on 25 October, Everton’s Hill Dickinson Stadium on 1 November and AMT Headingley in Leeds on 8 November, all live on BBC One.

V’landys said: “On Sunday, the selectors picked the first 23 players for the Kangaroo tour. Naturally, that’s not going to be the final team because the final team will be selected after the [NRL] Grand Final on Monday.

“However, one of the players that was selected was James Tedesco, and James has pulled out because he’s got his brother’s wedding, and he’s the best man.

“I asked him to think about it, but he believes that he wouldn’t be doing the right thing by his family if he wasn’t in the wedding, which is a shame because he played so well this year and deserved his place in the team.

Australian media reported on Monday that Tedesco had been told to go on the tour by his brother.

“We want him to go,” Matthew Tedesco told the Sydney Morning Herald. “It’s always been reiterated that we’re proud of him. Even to get called back in after being dropped [is amazing].

“I wasn’t going to say anything and my partner said, ‘You should tell him, so he’s not worried about it. You don’t want him stressing, give him the confidence and the push that we want him to go.'”

But Tedesco himself told Australia’s NCA Newswire that he wanted to give himself extra time to recover from a knee issue – as well as making sure he was there for his brother’s big day.

“I rang Peter. I wasn’t sure if I was going to get picked but he said I was going to get picked and for me to sleep on it and think about it,” Tedesco said.