{"id":137671,"date":"2025-09-12T12:16:21","date_gmt":"2025-09-12T12:16:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/137671\/"},"modified":"2025-09-12T12:16:21","modified_gmt":"2025-09-12T12:16:21","slug":"nrl-club-address-mark-nawaqanitawase-situation-as-wallabies-circle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/137671\/","title":{"rendered":"NRL club address Mark Nawaqanitawase situation as Wallabies circle"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The Sydney Roosters will ramp up talks with Mark Nawaqanitawase<\/a> about a long-term contract next month after Wallabies coach Joe Schmidt claimed the door remained open for the winger to return to the 15-man game.<\/p>\n

Nawaqanitawase has had NRL pundits gushing with praise since landing at the Roosters after his Olympic Games exploits with the Australian sevens team last year.<\/p>\n

The 25-year-old has turned heads with several eye-catching plays in his first full season in the NRL and finished the regular campaign with 23 tries in 22 games.<\/p>\n

Spoken of as an option for the Kangaroos\u2019 Ashes tour to England<\/a> this year, Nawaqanitawase will be free to speak to rival clubs \u2013 and codes \u2013 as soon as November 1 when he enters the final 12 months of his Roosters contract.<\/p>\n

Nawaqanitawase confirmed to AAP earlier this week there was a definite lure of playing in the 2027 Rugby World Cup<\/a> in Australia, and he had \u201ca hard decision\u201d to make in coming months.<\/p>\n

Roosters coach Trent Robinson was in no mood to talk in depth about the situation on Friday, with his concentration squarely focused on Saturday night\u2019s elimination final against Cronulla.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s got a year to run on his contract. There\u2019s not much use having those conversations until the end of the season,\u201d Robinson said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey won\u2019t happen, no one\u2019s having them because all that matters is tomorrow night.<\/p>\n

\u201cI really don\u2019t care at the moment and I will in October because I want him to be here long-term.\u201d<\/p>\n

Schmidt concedes Robinson won\u2019t let the winger go without a fight.<\/p>\n

\u201cI saw Mark in passing a couple of weeks ago and he certainly looked in good shape,\u201d Schmidt said ahead of Saturday\u2019s Rugby Championship<\/a> clash with Argentina<\/a> in Sydney.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve seen him score a couple of very impressive tries. He loves getting in at the corner and quite acrobatically.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of that rests in Mark\u2019s court as to what he does next.\u201d<\/p>\n

Schmidt said regardless of Nawaqanitawase\u2019s next steps, the Wallabies, who have named Max Jorgensen<\/a> and Corey Toole<\/a> on the wings this weekend, are well stocked.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s so much talent amongst some of those players, and his (Nawaqanitawase\u2019s) athleticism in the air is not too different from Joseph-Aukuso Suaalii,\u201d Schmidt said.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo have athletes like that, it\u2019s always something that would add value.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut at the same time, we\u2019ve got guys who\u2019ve stayed invested in rugby union, and Max Jorgensen has been outstanding.<\/p>\n

\u201cCorey Toole has come through, and his two Tests have been really impressive.<\/p>\n

\u201cHarry Potter, before he got injured, was playing really well, and Dylan Pietsch<\/a> brings a real physical edge out wide.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are a few wingers that have been really good for us.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Sydney Roosters will ramp up talks with Mark Nawaqanitawase about a long-term contract next month after Wallabies…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":137672,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,761,762,158,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-137671","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\/137671","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=137671"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137671\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/137672"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=137671"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=137671"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=137671"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}