BY JOHN DAVIDSON
Brian Carney believes England will beat Australia at Wembley tomorrow in the first Test, with several factors working in the hosts’ favour.
The Sky Sports presenter was a member of the last Great Britain & Ireland team to beat the Kangaroos, in Sydney at the SFS in 2006.
On the gap between the two nations and the 19-year wait to defeat the Aussies, Carney told rugbyleaguehub.com Long Reads: “One side has consistently been better than the other side in those games.
“I wouldn’t have thought England went in as favourites in any of those matches [in the past 19 years]. Having said that, sometimes there’s not a whole lot in it.
“Sometimes it’s fine margins, Kallum Watkins in the 2017 World Cup final. Ryan Hall in Melbourne [in 2014]. That’s how far you are away, sometimes not at all.
“I give England a massive chance on Saturday. In fact, I would say I’m expecting England to win. They’ve lost Matty Ashton and Victor Radley, and they would be playing on Saturday.
“But you’re going up against an Australian side who’ve had voluntary withdrawals, with the likes of James Tedesco. Withdrawals based on injury – Tom Trbojevic, Latrell Mitchell, Xavier Coates, and then they’ve had changing their international allegiance in Payne Haas.
“Now it has worked the other way with Kelon Kolomatangi. But you lose Payne Haas. So that’s all going in favour of England. They’re at home, it’s an English referee.
“If the rucks are anything like the Super League grand final – and this isn’t a slight in any way on Liam Moore… It’s not nearly as strong an Australian side as it could be.
“They’ve had travel, England have had, bar Ashton and Radley, have had their pick. I give them a massive chance. There’ll be England fans who’d have every right to be disappointed if they don’t come away with a victory at Wembley.
“There are stars in the Australian game we’re going to be privileged to see – Reece Walsh, Cameron Munster, Nathan Cleary, Harry Grant, Isaah Yeo – that’s phenomenal. But England may look at what’s around that, even look that and say well, let’s get stuck in there.
“I expect England to win this Test.”
Carney remembers in 2006 the Lions headed into Sydney to face the Kangaroos at the SFS in the Tri-Nations. They were coming off a disappointing loss to New Zealand in Christchurch.
“We rolled into this game and the New Zealand result was really disappointing. We didn’t play well as a group.
“I remember being at the SFS before and training. I think we had a crap training session the day before. When it comes to the game, I know I got injured chasing Greg Inglis.
“I hadn’t had a hamstring injury all year at Newcastle, missed 35 minutes of the entire season when I had a dead leg against the Bulldogs, but then I pulled my hamstring. I watched three quarters of the game from the sidelines.”
Apart from the famous result for Great Britain & Ireland, the match is long remembered because of the fights between Willie Mason and Stuart Fielden, and then Jamie Peacock, and for Mason’s brutal elbow to the face of Sean Long.
“I remember Longy being absolutely outstanding,” Carney says.
“I remember him being on the receiving end of a phenomenally bad assault from Willie Mason. It was a really poor one. He picked himself up and was outstanding.
“Longy’s performance and Lee Gilmour’s stand out for me. The feeling afterwards was just a huge, huge result.
“We celebrated it maybe too much with what was coming down the line. We were staying at the Manly Pacific. It was a fairly solid session.
“When you go into any game as an underdog, no matter what people tell you, the longer you stay in the fight statistically you’re a better chance of winning the game. But mentally and emotionally, you just grow as an underdog. You really do.
“Sometimes the converse happens when you’re a favourite, and they’re just not going away these underdogs. It was a tremendous result, a great night, but ultimately the tournament was a poor failure. You can’t hide behind that. It was a huge high across a really poor tour.”
Despite history being made, the Lions only won one of four games in that Tri-Nations series in 2006.
“In 2006, what we set out to do, we didn’t do. We got a victory, it happened to be against Australia, it happened to be in Sydney.
“While that’s not to be sniffed at, ultimately the tour was a failure.”
The international game has changed tremendously in the past two decades. Tonga have beaten Australia, New Zealand and Great Britain, while Samoa reached the last World Cup final.
Carney admits it is difficult to predict what a first Ashes series win since 1970 would mean for British rugby league, or conversely, what another series loss would result in.
“I don’t think a 3-0 series loss would send us backward any meaningful way,” the winger said.
“What a series win translates into is hard to predict. It would mean a huge amount to rugby league people in England.
“England now has to play its part. Give the Aussies a reason to focus on international rugby league. And there would be nothing that would do more to sharpen the focus of the Australians than an Ashes series win for England.
“Australia used to have their pick [of players] and that’s changed. This may be a monumental series where England stands up like Samoa has and Tonga has.
“I’ll travel down to Wembley on Saturday for the game as a neutral. I expect England to be smiling at the end.”