Good newsEngland Win Wheelchair Rugby League World Cup as Game’s Teams Double
England beat France 50–38 in Wollongong to become the first nation to win the Wheelchair Rugby League World Cup three times. Formal league teams in England have grown from 19 to 42 since the 2022 title.
This story runs on the good side only. The biggest stories of the day are told on both sides.
England are the first nation to win the Wheelchair Rugby League World Cup three times. They beat France 50–38 in the final in Wollongong, Australia, on Friday 13 November, according to the tournament’s official site and BBC Sport. It was a title defence, and England kept the trophy they won on home soil in 2022.
The match was as hard as the score suggests. England led 10–0 inside ten minutes, France hit back with a run of tries, and the lead changed hands more than once. Joe Coyd scored four tries for England, including the first two of the match. Jack Brown finished with a hat-trick and Rob Hawkins added two, the BBC reports. Dany Denuwelaere answered with three for France.
The try that turned it
The pivotal moment came on the stroke of half-time. According to ABC News, Brown rolled half the length of the pitch to collect a weighted kick from Hawkins and dive in, putting England ahead. The BBC says Hawkins had first evaded two French defenders to set it up, and counts the try among the best of the tournament. It is the sort of moment, in a sport that mixes bruising collisions with fine skill, that new viewers tend to remember. The BBC also notes that the two nations had split their last four meetings evenly before the final, two wins each, so nobody expected an easy night.
France stayed close into the second half. Denuwelaere’s third try came in the closing stages, but it could not stop England pulling clear. By then Coyd had completed his four and Brown had scored twice more after the break. The contest had its flashpoints, with heavy chair collisions and one set of goalposts rebuilt during play, but the BBC called it a showcase for the sport.
Chart: GoodBad. Data from The Guardian, 12 November 2026.
Why the result matters beyond the trophy
The Guardian reported before the final that participation in the sport in England has risen by 110% since the 2022 win. Four years ago there were 19 teams in formal leagues. There are now 42, and the number is still rising. The paper calls it the most popular wheelchair sport in England by some distance.
Clubs are building pathways. Leeds Rhinos, Wigan Warriors and Wakefield Trinity, the new men’s Super League champions, run wheelchair teams, and also girls’ and junior teams, according to The Guardian. Players say that matters as much as the result. England’s captain Lewis King was left partially paralysed in 2009 at 24. He says the team speaks regularly about showing that trauma does not mean the end of sport.
The squad’s newest players are products of the last tournament. Finlay O’Neill, who could no longer play able-bodied rugby league because of his knees, took up the wheelchair game after watching England win in 2022. In 2026 he scored in the tournament and played in a final.
The mindset behind it
The BBC says England spoke before and during the tournament of a wish to win the trophy, rather than defend it. The BBC reads that choice of words as a sign of a positive approach, and says the squad did what it set out to do. Hawkins revealed during the tournament that the team room has a ladder, with a rung sprayed gold for each victory. The final win added the last rung.
A rivalry with a pattern
The sport has had only five World Cup finals, and England and France have played in every one, according to Sky Sports. France won in 2013 and 2017. England have won three, including the last two.
| Final | Winner | Margin |
|---|---|---|
| 2013 | France | 2 points |
| 2017 | France | 4 points |
| 2022 | England | 4 points |
| 2026 | England | 12 points |
The first three margins come from the BBC, which says the two nations were separated by only ten points across the 2013, 2017 and 2022 finals. The 2022 final was won 28–24 in Manchester with a last-gasp try from Tom Halliwell. Friday’s 12-point win is the widest of the four listed here.
How the road went
England’s path was decisive. They beat hosts Australia 86–18 in the semi-final on Tuesday, ABC reports. Australia recovered to beat Ireland 70–24 in the third-place play-off. The wheelchair side’s success also stood out at the tournament. The BBC says England’s men’s and women’s teams both went out in the group stage, and the wheelchair title offset that disappointment, as it did four years ago.
Hawkins, the Halifax Panthers wing, has won the Golden Boot as the world’s best player for the third year running. The BBC says he is the first player in any form of rugby league to win it three times in succession.
What you can see and do next
The final reached UK viewers because the BBC televised it, even though most of the tournament sat behind a paywall. The Guardian says the 2022 final drew a television audience of almost 2 million and 5,000 spectators in Manchester. No source we found gives the audience or attendance for Wollongong.
For anyone who wants to try the sport, the Guardian’s figures point to one answer. There are more than twice as many formal teams to join as there were at the last World Cup. The reports we read give no date for the next World Cup, so domestic fixtures are the next place to see the game.
