Reece Walsh lights up London to lead Kangaroos to victory

London: Reece Walsh lit up London, repaying the faith of coach Kevin Walters in a sublime Test debut to lead Australia to a 26-6 victory and a 1-0 lead in the Ashes series.

The premiership-winner scored two tries, saved two tries and had the 60,812 fans at Wembley Stadium on its feet on a number of occasions in a man-of-the-match performance, justifying the decision to leave incumbent Kangaroos fullback Dylan Edwards on the sideline for the opening Test of the three-game series.

Reece Walsh performs the swan dive as he crossed for the first of two tries at Wembley Stadium. Credit: Getty

Walsh and Roosters backrower Angus Crichton, who also scored two tries, were arguably the best two players on the field.

They were aided by the controlling performance of hooker Harry Grant, who had to step up and captain the side in the absence of Isaah Yeo due to an early concussion that is likely to rule him out of the next game.

The Australians head to Liverpool for the second Test in the box seat to claim the country’s 14th consecutive Ashes series and its first since the last series in 2003.

It was an error-riddled game that hardly had the Wembley Stadium engaged, but it was expected from a group of players that between them haven’t played much football in their respective competition’s over the past month.

Walsh was on fire in his debut.Credit: Getty

Walsh started and finished the Kangaroos opening try of the game in the 18th minute.

The Broncos No.1 threw a cut-out pass that put Mark Nawaqanitawase into open space, with the Roosters winger drawing the fullback to then put Walsh over for his first Kangaroos try on debut - swan dive and all.

The Clive Churchill medallist then showed off his defensive prowess, shutting down breakaway England centre Jake Wardle by throwing himself between the two oncoming attackers to knock down the ball like he did to deny Ryan Papenhuyzen in the dying minutes of the grand final.

On the stroke of half-time, Walsh threatened to break away again but was held back by an English defender while attempting to back up a barnstorming Pat Carrigan.

Angus Crichton also scored two tries.Credit: Getty

The referee refrained from using the sin bin for a professional foul but the indiscretion gifted the Australians a penalty goal to head into the sheds with an 8-0 lead.

The second half began with more Walsh action, with the speedster drifting across field on a kick return and slicing through some feeble English defence to put Australia deep on the attack.

The momentum led to Angus Crichton strolling through some soft England defence and cruising past fullback Jack Welsby to give the Australians a 14-0 buffer with 33 minutes remaining.

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Crichton grabbed another soon after when he combined with Cameron Munster for the second time in 20 minutes to stretch Australia out to an unassailable 20-0 lead.

As the English fans began to pour out of the iconic venue, Walsh gave them one more thing to remember him by when he put Gehamat Shibasaki away and backed up on the inside to score his second try of the afternoon.

England scored a late try through hooker Daryl Clark, but by that stage plenty of their fans were halfway to Wembley Park Station.

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