With 2025 now well underway, it’s appropriate to look at what lies ahead in sport these coming 12 months.
You may think while there is no Olympic or Commonwealth Games scheduled, it is a ‘quiet’ year for sports fans. Think again.
This Roar Rookie discovers – in no particular order – that 2025 is a big year internationally for a number of teams competing on the world stage in Australia’s name.
Socceroos face make-or-break qualifiers
By the end of 2025, we will all know whether the Socceroos have maintained their perfect record of qualifying for the biggest sporting event on the planet since moving to the Asian confederation in 2006.
Or maybe not.
Tony Popovic’s men may still be preparing for the last chance qualification tournament in North America in early 2026 come this year’s Christmas break.
Or maybe – God forbid – Australia misses the World Cup finals for the first time since Uruguay buried Frank Farina’s side in Montevideo in 2001.
The must-win games against Indonesia and China in March start the 2025 journey for the Socceroos in the tightest of the third round Asian groups.
Harry Souttar’s recent ruptured achilles tendon is a bitter blow for Popovic in trying to get a stable side on the park.
But given the parlous state of the A-League right now, Australian football desperately needs the Socceroos to find a way to the World Cup.
Almost as much as the “Golden Generation” did that famous night at Accor Stadium in November, 2005.
Lions show comes down under, Wallaroos gear up for World Cup
2025 sees rugby under its greatest spotlight in ten years. Or maybe 12 years.
Certainly, not since their run to the Rugby World Cup final in 2015 – or the last British and Irish Lions tour to Australia two years earlier – has there been as much hope around them.
Or as much pressure.
Yes, there may have been hope when Hamish McClennan lured Eddie Jones back to the coach’s job.
But there was always a suspicion that hope was based on a mountain of quicksand – which turned out to be the case.
Joseph-Aukuso Suaalii (Photo by David Rogers/Getty Images)
Under Joe Schmidt, however, the ‘green shoots’ that sprung up on the recent Grand Slam tour seem to be more solid. More stable.
And it’s not just about the impact Joseph SuaaliI has made since his big bucks defection from rugby league.
The Schmidt way of getting the basics right first, then getting the results you deserve from that attention to detail appear to have the Wallabies back on the right path since that World Cup final appearance ten years ago.
The Lions will put that newfound confidence to the test.
Especially when it will feel like the Wallabies are playing away Test matches with 40,000 supporters wearing red jumpers in the stands – the first of two waves of loud supporter groups from the Old Dart hitting Australian stadiums this year.
The Wallabies – like their Socceroo brothers – are playing for their code as well as themselves in this series.
Rugby – having fallen behind the other codes since the heady days of John O’Neill’s stewardship – need the Wallabies to somehow win at least one of the three Lions Tests to give the code some mainstream traction again.
They may also need to do so to keep their coach on deck for their Rugby Championship commitments later in the year – let alone a home World Cup in two years’ time.
Like all smart operators, Schmidt has kept his options open and his cards close to his chest for life after the Lions tour.
Maybe even the Wallabies’ own coach needs to be convinced.
Meanwhile, the Wallaroos have their own World Cup ahead of them in England in August and September.
It is too much to expect that Australia can suddenly bridge the gap to the hosts and New Zealand in this World Cup that was there in the last tournament across the ditch three years ago.
But Jo Yapp’s squad showed more than enough in their victorious WXV2 campaign last spring to point to the Wallaroos at least matching their 2022 quarter-final finish.
Or maybe their best-ever third-place finish from 2010.
(Photo by Cameron Spencer/Getty Images)
The match against the US in their Pool A program will be their grand final in this Cup campaign – before they play England in the last Pool match.
If they get past the Americans, it is a probable match-up with Canada in the quarters in this expanded 16-team World Cup.
An upset win there and they could not only emerge from the large shadow cast by their sevens sisters, but save any embarrassment the Wallabies may give rugby fans earlier in the year.
Aussie men go for back-to-back world titles, Healy leads World Cup defence
Just when you are taking long exhale from the remarkable Border-Gavaskar Trophy series just finished, Australia’s national cricket teams have another massive year in front of them in 2025.
Both Pat Cummins’ men and Alyssa Healy’s women have two of the biggest prizes in their respective games in front of them this year, if not the two biggest – as they involve clashes for the Ashes against the old enemy England.
After the Sri Lanka Test series, the men defend their World Test Championship Mace at Lords in June against the improving young South Africans under Tenda Bevuma’s leadership.
While they deserve to start favourites, Cummins’ side should not take the Proteas lightly.
They have won their last seven Tests on the bounce and in Kagiso Rabada, they have a spearhead who can give the ageing Aussie Top order as much grief as Jasprit Bumrah did this summer at home.
Then the most anticipated Ashes series will follow at year’s end.
The Poms have worked themselves into a near frenzy with their talk and chatter since the last controversy filled series in England 18 months ago.
Backed by their boisterous Barmy Army – the second wave of UK sports masses to hit our shores this year – make no mistake, Brendon McCullum’s Bazball philosophy younger pace attack of Atkinson/Carse/Wood, and batsmen such as Harry Brook will be judged by their own on whether they can win their first Ashes series in Australia in 15 years at the back end of 2025.
Harry Brook celebrates with Joe Root during the pair’s record 451-run partnership against Pakistan. (Photo by Stu Forster/Getty Images)
With a fair chunk of Cummins’ team looking to perhaps go out from the game on an Ashes high, next summer’s Tests promise to be just as crazy as this summer’s series against India was.
The acknowledged World Champion women have their two biggest events in their 2025 schedule.
The home Ashes has been won, their sweep of the one-dayers has virtually decided the multi-format series.
The day-night pink-ball Test at the MCG – the first women’s Test at the G since 1949 – shapes up as an historic climax.
Even if it is a dead rubbe’ Test.
It will be a different challenge away from home against as Healy’s team defend their ODI World Cup title in India in September/October.
Australia will start short priced favourites to go back to back – but on the lower slower decks they will face, they could fall short as they did in similar conditions in Dubai against South Africa in last year’s T20 World Cup semi-final.
Their all round depth – shown by the luxury of possibly batting class all rounder Tahlia McGrath at No.7 at the start of the Ashes series – should counter this.
Australian supporters will be hoping so.
A “quiet” 2025 ahead? Hardly. And we haven’t even mentioned the AFL and NRL here.
So strap yourselves in folks. Just like the times we now live in, this year promises to be – like a roller coaster without brakes – one hell of a ride.
