The times are always a-changing in rugby league, but 2025 will see a return of a once-proud tradition: a Kangaroos tour to England.

For the first time since 2003, Australia will play England in England in a three-Test series.

The Australian Rugby League Commission (ARLC), alongside Rugby League Commercial, The Rugby Football League, and International Rugby League, announced recently that the Australian Kangaroos and England will contest the first three-Test Ashes series in 22 years.

ARLC chairman Peter V’landys said Kangaroo Tours have produced some of the greatest moments in the history of the game.

“We are proud to revive one of the great rugby league traditions. The ARLC believes in the international game. Kangaroo tours are an iconic part of rugby league folklore.”

National Rugby League chief executive officer Andrew Abdo said the first Kangaroos tour of England in a couple of decades will excite fans on both sides of the globe.

“The Ashes has such a storied history,” he said. “A Kangaroos tour unites the rugby league southern and northern hemispheres, and is an incredible opportunity to grow the international game.”

So, what will be different this time?

The Kangaroos tour will not include a trip to France.

Tour games are also not part of the equation, with the three Tests being played on consecutive Saturdays.

Kangaroos tours used to be rugby league’s equivalent of a marathon, with more matches than a competition season.

Australia played 45 matches on the 1908/09 tour, and the least amount of games on tour up until 1960 was 28 in 1956/57 when Australia lost 3-0 to Great Britain, but defeated France 3-0 in the Test matches.

When the ‘Invincibles’ went through the 1982 Kangaroos tour undefeated for the first time, they had to win 22 games, including three Tests against Great Britain and a further two against France, to do so.

In 1986, the ‘Unbeatables’ won 20 games, including the same amount of Tests (five).

By 1994 that had reduced to 18 games. The Super League War ended any chance of a 1990s tour and then the aftermath of September 11 attacks reduced the 2001 Kangaroos tour to just the three Tests. The seeds for truncated tours were sown.

So, what will there be in 2025?

There will be an England side desperate to show they are still a quality outfit after the rise of Samoa and Tonga in the international rugby league landscape in recent seasons.

There will be parochial ‘northern’ crowds in England at two amazing stadiums with the final Test in rugby league heartland at Leeds.

Across the last two decades when Kangaroos tours -- once the elite honour of a rugby league player -- were discontinued, State of Origin took over as the showpiece of representative rugby league in Australia. So there will be the chance for Test rugby league to dominate pub conversations again.