Hours after the final hooter had sounded on his try-scoring England Test debut, Finlay O’Neill was still buzzing.
The Halifax Panthers wing, still a Wheelchair Rugby League rookie by normal standards having played his first game little more than two years ago, came off the interchange bench late in the first half with England leading 16-6.
“If you’d told me then I’d still be on at the end, I probably wouldn’t have believed it,” he admitted.
But that was a huge vote of confidence in O’Neill from Tom Coyd and his England coaching staff, which the 20-year-old justified with a composed and industrious performance, capped in the 66th minute when he was sent over by a moment of brilliance from his Panthers team-mate Jack Brown.
“I’ve played enough with Jack to know what he’s going to do,” O’Neill reflected. “It was an amazing feeling scoring that try, especially as it was an important one which gave us a two-score lead. But everything about the tour has been fantastic. Experiencing Australia, being part of the England squad, getting picked in the Test team, being presented with my England shirt by Brian McDermott, singing the national anthem – although that was a bit weird, because the music didn’t work so we had to sing it ourselves.”
O’Neill has spoken previously about the positive impact Wheelchair Rugby League has had on his life since he joined the Panthers in 2023, having suffered an injury playing the running game for the King Cross community club.
That was one reason his father and grandmother travelled to Australia to watch his first two England appearances, in the State games against New South Wales and Queensland. “Having them there to watch made it mean even more,” Finlay explained.
O’Neill, Brown and Rob Hawkins, the third Panthers player in England’s first Test side, maintained Halifax’s rich tradition in Wheelchair Rugby League, as the cradle of the sport in the UK thanks to the pioneering work of Malcolm Kielty MBE.
And O’Neill paid tribute to the influence of the fourth Halifax player in England’s tour squad, his Panthers player-coach Wayne Boardman, who was squeezed out of Coyd’s tricky selection.
“I’ve learned so much from Jack, Rob and Wayne,” he added. “And also Seb Bechara, who played quite a few games for us in my first season before he went back to Catalans this year. It’s made it much easier for me to settle in having them over here with me.”
Hawkins showed again why he won the IRL’s Wheelchair Rugby League Golden Boot for 2024 by scoring a hat-trick, and staked a strong claim to retain the award for 2025 – although a number of other England players must also be serious contenders.
They will all have a last chance to impress in Sunday’s second Test, at the same Gold Coast venue – but O’Neill is expecting another fierce challenge from the Wheelaroos.
“That game was definitely a level up on anything I’ve played before,” he said of his Test debut. “Australia have some great players and we were under pressure when they went ahead in the second half, but the five of us on the pitch got together and talked about how it was down to us to get things right. It was a great feeling to come off the pitch at the end knowing we’d done that.”
