{"id":209366,"date":"2025-10-13T04:45:07","date_gmt":"2025-10-13T04:45:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/209366\/"},"modified":"2025-10-13T04:45:07","modified_gmt":"2025-10-13T04:45:07","slug":"the-one-thing-wests-tigers-need-to-do-to-keep-jarome-luai","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/209366\/","title":{"rendered":"The one thing Wests Tigers need to do to keep Jarome Luai"},"content":{"rendered":"

Having had time to reflect on the Tigers\u2019 campaign, he said 2025 could not be described as a success because \u201cwe didn\u2019t play in the finals\u201d.<\/p>\n

\"Jarome<\/p>\n

Jarome Luai prepares to fly out of Sydney on Monday with his Samoa teammates.Credit: Christian Nicolussi<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s me as a competitor, and the years I\u2019ve been through [at Penrith],\u201d he said. \u201cWe can be a lot better, and it starts in pre-season.\u201d<\/p>\n

Luai, fellow Tigers Taylan and Terrell May, Canberra\u2019s Josh Papalii<\/a>, Parramatta\u2019s Junior Paulo, Penrith\u2019s Blaize Talagi and Brian To\u2019o, and premiership-winning prop Payne Haas \u2013 who Luai refers to as \u201cSamoa\u2019s marquee signing\u201d \u2013 are just some of the big names in action on Sunday against the Kiwis in Auckland.<\/p>\n

Haas has been heavily linked to breakaway rugby union competition R360, with his management reportedly telling organisers last week the prop was only interested in entering negotiations if they were prepared to pay a minimum of $3 million a season.<\/p>\n

Luai said there had been plenty of \u201cbanter\u201d with the players about R360 and the wild money being discussed.<\/p>\n

Loading<\/p>\n

\u201cThe figures getting thrown around, as a player, it will always be eye-catching, but until it actually happens, I don\u2019t think we\u2019ll have serious conversations about it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Taylan May\u2019s late-season cameo was another promising sign for the Tigers, especially the quality of football he delivered without a pre-season, and Luai said he would be one of Samoa\u2019s danger men out wide.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s a freak, bro … and if his mind is right, and he\u2019s motivated, and he\u2019s got a goal to work towards, then he\u2019s a threat to a lot of others,\u201d Luai said.<\/p>\n

Now 28, Luai captained Samoa in a series in England last year, and will share the responsibility with Paulo this year.<\/p>\n

The tiny Pacific nation made it to the World Cup final in 2022, and is still awaiting the returns of Stephen Crichton and Spencer Leniu, two players who will miss this series due to injury and fatherhood respectively, ahead of next year\u2019s World Cup.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Having had time to reflect on the Tigers\u2019 campaign, he said 2025 could not be described as a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":209367,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,761,762,158,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-209366","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\/209366","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=209366"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/209366\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/209367"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=209366"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=209366"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=209366"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}