{"id":137294,"date":"2025-09-12T08:44:12","date_gmt":"2025-09-12T08:44:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/137294\/"},"modified":"2025-09-12T08:44:12","modified_gmt":"2025-09-12T08:44:12","slug":"nrl-news-2025-andrew-johns-exclusive-on-tom-trbojevic-leaving-manly-sea-eagles-to-join-england-super-league-knights-interested","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/137294\/","title":{"rendered":"NRL news 2025, Andrew Johns exclusive on Tom Trbojevic leaving Manly Sea Eagles to join England Super League, Knights interested"},"content":{"rendered":"

Andrew Johns<\/a> is a fan of Tom Trbojevic<\/a> going to play rugby league in England, saying more NRL<\/a> players should consider doing so, if even for a short time during the year.<\/p>\n

Nine’s Danny Weidler broke the news on Thursday that Manly’s $1.3 million fullback has begun exploring his options to quit the Sea Eagles<\/a> and head overseas.<\/p>\n

Trbojevic is contracted until the end of next season but is yet to commit beyond that, and there are growing murmurs that he is disgruntled with the club.<\/p>\n

READ MORE: Tragic finals absence highlighted by NRL Team of the Year<\/a><\/p>\n

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Given the 28-year-old has little desire to play against Manly in the NRL, a move to Europe’s Super League is the logical option.<\/p>\n

Speaking on Wide World of Sports’ Immortal Behaviour<\/a>, Johns revealed his former club Newcastle recently enquired about Trbojevic’s availability come November 1, when the next contract cycle begins.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Tom Trbojevic of the Sea Eagles.\u00a0Getty<\/p>\n

But he says Trbojevic could go to England and be the best player in the competition by some margin.<\/p>\n

“He’s been very loud about he would never play for anyone (in the NRL) other than Manly,” Johns said.<\/p>\n

“I think it would suit Turbo down to the ground. (If he was) fully fit, no one would touch him in Super League.<\/p>\n

“I know there’s clubs have been asking me about him – do the math, the one I played for – but fully fit Turbo would just own it, and (it would be) huge for the Super League.<\/p>\n

Watch the 2025 NRL premiership live and free on Nine and 9Now<\/a>.<\/p>\n

“They need more stars going over there.”<\/p>\n

Johns played for Warrington briefly in 2005 after winning three Dally M medals and two premierships in the NRL.<\/p>\n

The state of the Super League has deteriorated as the sport struggles for public interest and broadcast revenue in England due to competition from football and rugby.<\/p>\n

NRL great Luke Keary caused a stir earlier this year when he detailed to Wide World of Sports the dire state of rugby league in Europe<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Johns believes the competition could be boosted by more star power, and says pathways should be created to allow NRL players to spend brief periods in England.<\/p>\n

“If they could put their competition back a month… send Mitchell Moses over, who else isn’t playing in the semis? Bradman Best, send him over for a month to play,” he said.<\/p>\n

“Send the stars over there to attract publicity, attract crowds, gets eyes on TV.<\/p>\n

“That used to be huge back in the day – they won’t go back to playing in (England’s) winter – but guys used to go and play a whole off-season over there, the Aussie boys, go over there for three or four months.<\/p>\n

“They need to get more stars there and Turbo would be huge.”<\/p>\n

Penrith halfback Nathan Cleary has previously also been linked to a possible Super League move.<\/p>\n

Cleary’s partner Mary Fowler plays football for Manchester City and it’s been rumoured he might ditch the NRL to move to England in the coming years.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Andrew Johns is a fan of Tom Trbojevic going to play rugby league in England, saying more NRL…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":137295,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,761,762,158,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-137294","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nrl","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-national-rugby-league","11":"tag-nationalrugbyleague","12":"tag-nrl","13":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137294","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=137294"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137294\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/137295"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=137294"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=137294"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=137294"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}