{"id":227869,"date":"2025-10-20T16:38:10","date_gmt":"2025-10-20T16:38:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/227869\/"},"modified":"2025-10-20T16:38:10","modified_gmt":"2025-10-20T16:38:10","slug":"samoa-likely-to-need-fresh-faces-as-concussions-bite-nrl-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/227869\/","title":{"rendered":"Samoa likely to need fresh faces as concussions bite – NRL News"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jazz Tevaga<\/a>, Ata Mariota<\/a> and Jaydn Su’A<\/a> will all be forced to miss Sunday’s Pacific Championships clash with Tonga<\/a>, potentially forcing the nation into needing fresh faces to name a team.<\/p>\n

The trio all suffered concussions on Sunday during a loss to New Zealand<\/a>, with Samoa<\/a> now in danger of missing the final of the tournament even if they do beat Tonga<\/a>.<\/p>\n

With the three players missing under mandatory concussion standown rules, Samoa<\/a> will also be sweating on Terrell May<\/a> returning after he was a late absence from the game against New Zealand<\/a>.<\/p>\n

His absence, as well as the other injuries<\/a>, saw Payne Haas<\/a> play an enormous 80 minutes during the game.<\/p>\n

Benaiah Ioleu, who was 18th man for Samoa<\/a> in the opening match of the tournament, will almost certainly come into the side for the game against Tonga<\/a>, while several other faces could be needed, although it’s unclear who at this stage.<\/p>\n

Tevaga started at hooker for the game, while Su’A started in the second row, and Mariota came from the bench.<\/p>\n

If May is fit, he will almost certainly come into the front row alongside Haas with Josh Papalii<\/a> dropping back to the bench and claiming the spot left vacant by Mariota.<\/p>\n

Ioelu could start at hooker, or come from the bench with Chanel Harris-Tavita<\/a> wearing the number nine in place of Tevaga, with Simi Sasagi<\/a> likely starting in the second row, leaving a vacant bench spot which could be claimed by a Samoa-<\/a>eligible\u00a0second-rower like Shawn Blore<\/a> or Connelly Lemuelu<\/a>.<\/p>\n

“We’ve got a lot of blood and a lot of stitches going on in the room, as well as some bruises,” Samoan coach Ben Gardiner<\/a> said during his post-match press conference.<\/p>\n

“But that is part and parcel of a big game, with that sort of physicality and ball-in-play time.”<\/p>\n

While Gardiner has not indicated names who could come into his squad, or the likely fitness of May, Samoa<\/a> will likely need to make a call on Tuesday with teams for Week 2 matches – including Samoa<\/a> against Tonga<\/a> in Brisbane – to be named at 4pm (AEDT).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jazz Tevaga, Ata Mariota and Jaydn Su’A will all be forced to miss Sunday’s Pacific Championships clash with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":227870,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,761,762,158,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-227869","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\/227869","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=227869"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/227869\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/227870"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=227869"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=227869"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=227869"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}