Newcastle-bound forward utility Chris Heighington has been recalled to the England side for Saturday’s Rugby League World Cup 2017 final against Australia in Brisbane.
The 34-year-old veteran of 317 NRL appearances will play his seventh and most important match for his adopted league nation from the bench, with St Helens skipper James Roby elevated into the starting line-up to replace injured hooker Josh Hodgson in the only change to the England squad.
Heighington has not played for the Cup finalists since appearing off the bench in their opening two games against Australia in Melbourne and Lebanon in Sydney.
The Australians have picked the same 17 that defeated Fiji in the semi-final and Samoa in the quarter-final with their only changes being their No. 20 and 21 selected players with Cameron Munster and Ben Hunt named instead of Josh Mansour and James Maloney.
The teams for the women’s final between Australia and New Zealand will be named later this week as they do not need to be formally announced until Friday.The men’s teams:
Australia v England
Saturday, December 2
Brisbane Stadium, 7pm EAST (8pm AEDT)
Match officials: Referee - Gerard Sutton; touch judges - Chris Kendall and Chris Butler; video referee: Ben Thaler
AUSTRALIA
1 Billy SLATER
2 Dane GAGAI
3 Will CHAMBERS
4 Josh DUGAN
5 Valentine HOLMES
6 Michael MORGAN
7 Cooper CRONK
8 Aaron WOODS
9 Cameron SMITH (c)
10 David KLEMMER
11 Boyd CORDNER
12 Matt GILLETT
13 Josh MCGUIRE
14 Wade GRAHAM
15 Jordan MCLEAN
16 Reagan CAMPBELL-GILLARD
17 Tyson FRIZELL
18 Felise KAUFUSI
19 Tom TRBOJEVIC
20 Cameron MUNSTER
21 Ben HUNT
ENGLAND
1 Gareth WIDDOP
2 Jermaine MCGILLVARY
3 Kallum WATKINS
4 John BATEMAN
5 Ryan HALL
6 Kevin BROWN
7 Luke GALE
8 Chris HILL
9 James ROBY
10 James GRAHAM
11 Sam BURGESS
12 Elliott WHITEHEAD
13 Sean O'LOUGHLIN (c)
14 Alex WALMSLEY
15 Thomas BURGESS
16 Ben CURRIE
17 Chris HEIGHINGTON
18 Jonny LOMAX
19 Scott TAYLOR
20 George WILLIAMS
21 Mark PERCIVAL
