{"id":267134,"date":"2025-07-16T17:28:10","date_gmt":"2025-07-16T17:28:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/267134\/"},"modified":"2025-07-16T17:28:10","modified_gmt":"2025-07-16T17:28:10","slug":"great-britain-icon-insists-england-can-absolutely-beat-australia-in-ashes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/267134\/","title":{"rendered":"Great Britain icon insists England can ‘absolutely’ beat Australia in Ashes"},"content":{"rendered":"

Martin Offiah has spoken of his delight at becoming an ambassador for this year\u2019s eagerly-anticipated Ashes series as he declared: \u201cEngland can turn the Aussies over.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

With the opening Test against Australia at Wembley now just 100 days away, Offiah spent Wednesday promoting the series with a number of current and ex-players including Adrian Morley, Jack Welsby and George Williams.<\/p>\n

They were on board a London Red Bus through which drove various iconic locations in the capital as excitement builds for the first Ashes series in 22 years.<\/p>\n

Offiah, the legendary former Widnes, Wigan and Great Britain winger, told Love Rugby League<\/strong>: \u201cCan England win the Ashes this autumn? Absolutely.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe know it\u2019s not going to be easy because this is rugby league at the very highest level and against Australians who ply their trade in the NRL every single week.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut England have a number of players with NRL experience and we\u2019re going into the Ashes on the back of two successive series wins against Tonga and Samoa.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey were teams packed full of NRL players, so the potential in this England side under Shaun Wane is huge.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of the squad will have NRL experience, played in World Club Challenges against NRL sides, or faced NRL players during the past two autumn series.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat experience is vital going into the Ashes and, with the massive home support behind them, England have a realistic chance of winning the series.\u201d<\/p>\n

Offiah\u2019s ambassadorial role involves attending events and doing media work as the RFL look to try and sell out the opening Test at Wembley on October 25.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m totally overjoyed to be involved and use my profile to help promote the series,\u201d added the 59-year-old, who made 33 appearances for Great Britain and five for England.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith the first game being at Wembley, and me being from London plus all my history of playing there, it means so much.<\/p>\n

\u201cI obviously played there in Challenge Cup finals, but actually my first-ever Wembley try was the opening Ashes game in 1990.<\/p>\n

\u201cI remember that day fondly and it came after we had beaten the Aussies in the final Test in Sydney 1988.<\/p>\n

\u201cI scored in that game as well and know what it\u2019s like to beat Australia in back-to-back Test matches. I\u2019m excited for the series already.\u201d<\/p>\n

Offiah\u2019s favourite Ashes memory is the 1992 tour down under, which Great Britain agonisingly again lost 2-1.<\/p>\n

They thumped the Kangaroos 33-10 in the second Test in Melbourne to level the series before losing the decider 16-10 in Brisbane.<\/p>\n

\u201cI had some great battles with Andrew Ettingshausen during the series and that win in Melbourne equalled the biggest-ever victory over Australia by a Great Britain side,\u201d remembered Offiah.<\/p>\n

\u201cI scored from a chip by Garry Schofield and it\u2019s a moment I\u2019ll remember forever.<\/p>\n

\u201cI actually met up with Andrew Ettingshausen in Las Vegas earlier this year and were talking about some of the duels we had in the Ashes and when he was at Leeds and I was at Widnes.\u201d<\/p>\n

Last week, Offiah spent a day at Headingley to undertake promotional work for the Ashes series with fellow legends such as Mal Reilly, Ellery Hanley, Sam Burgess and Leon Pryce.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was great to see these guys and talk about how much the Ashes means to British rugby league,\u201d said Offiah. Mal and Ellery both coached me in Ashes series and Leon was saying about how as a young kid he was inspired by watching Ellery and myself in Ashes series.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s how powerful an Ashes series can be and now hopefully the likes of Junior Nsemba, George Williams and Herbie Farnworth can similarly inspire the next generation.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Martin Offiah has spoken of his delight at becoming an ambassador for this year\u2019s eagerly-anticipated Ashes series as…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":267135,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5018,3,4],"tags":[748,393,4884,1144,712,16,15,1764],"class_list":{"0":"post-267134","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-britain","8":"category-uk","9":"category-united-kingdom","10":"tag-britain","11":"tag-england","12":"tag-great-britain","13":"tag-northern-ireland","14":"tag-scotland","15":"tag-uk","16":"tag-united-kingdom","17":"tag-wales"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114864095921722990","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/267134","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=267134"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/267134\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/267135"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=267134"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=267134"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=267134"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}