It is only a few years since Elliot Minchella would discuss the fortunes of the England rugby league side with the people he worked with on a building site in West Yorkshire. This weekend, however, those former colleagues will watch him fulfil a childhood dream after taking an unconventional route to the Test arena.
While so many of the men who will line up alongside Minchella in Toulouse on Saturday evening have had a straightforward journey to England honours, the 28-year-old’s story wasn’t quite the same. He made a try-scoring debut for Leeds Rhinos as a 17-year-old but an off-field incident saw his initial progress stutter, before eventually being let go by the Super League club.
Minchella would drop all the way down to the sport’s lowest professional tier, League One, playing in front of crowds of no more than a couple of hundred, combining it with a day job on a building site. “I was going to work 7 in the morning, the last thing you think of is playing in Super League, let alone for England,” he smiles.
But after his form caught the attention of Hull KR in 2020, Minchella has developed into one of Super League’s very best forwards. He is now captain of the Robins and the undoubted potential that looked like it could fizzle out in the early days has now most certainly been fulfilled, with Minchella named in the England side that face France on Saturday.
Welsby; Johnstone, Wood, Newman, Handley; Williams, Smith; Thompson, O’Neill, Lees, Currie, Nicholson, Minchella. Interchange Lewis, Harrison, Dupree, Wilson.
“There’s so much excitement,” he says. “I’ve waited so long for this moment and I won’t let it pass me by. But it’s another step in my story, it’s not the end or the pinnacle I hope.” He is one of four debutants who will take to the field on Saturday, a new-look England side with the next World Cup in 2026 firmly in mind for Shaun Wane.
Wane will not be present in France as he recovers from an unexpected surgery this week and his assistant Andy Last will lead the side in Toulouse. Minchella’s form unsurprisingly caught Wane’s eye with Rovers pushing for major honours in Super League. He now hopes his story can inspire others that there is no singular, linear route to the summit.
“Not everything is given to you in life, you have to go out and earn it. I’ve got friends who still do that part-time thing, lads who go to work every week and play on a Saturday,” he says. “Hopefully I can send a message to people outside Super League that it is possible, not everyone goes through that conventional route of breaking through at 17 and staying there for 15 years.
“My daughter is 18 months old; I want her to look at my career and story and see I went through some tough stuff, but came out the other side. It’s a good life lesson beyond rugby league: you get out what you put in. If this can inspire just one person, I’ll be happy.”
