{"id":233020,"date":"2025-10-22T17:44:10","date_gmt":"2025-10-22T17:44:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/233020\/"},"modified":"2025-10-22T17:44:10","modified_gmt":"2025-10-22T17:44:10","slug":"terrell-may-passed-fit-jazz-music-to-ears-for-samoa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/233020\/","title":{"rendered":"Terrell May passed fit, Jazz music to ears for Samoa"},"content":{"rendered":"

Samoa prop Terrell May has recovered from a hamstring injury and declared himself fit to play Tonga. (Darren England\/AAP PHOTOS)<\/p>\n

Prop forward Terrell May has declared himself fit and available for Samoa selection after the NRL cleared hooker Jazz Tevaga to take on Tonga.<\/p>\n

Wests Tigers powerhouse May missed the 24-18 loss to New Zealand in the opening round of the Pacific Cup in Auckland with a hamstring injury.<\/p>\n

The 26-year-old \u00a0trained with the Samoa team on Tuesday and has been named on an extended bench for Sunday’s showdown at Suncorp Stadium.<\/p>\n

Coach Ben Gardiner will make a call later in the week on whether May is a late inclusion in the 17 after his stellar season for the Tigers.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Tevaga left the field against the Kiwis in the 24th minute of Sunday’s match after displaying symptoms.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"tevaga\"
\n Samoa hooker Jazz Tevaga (right) is all smiles after being cleared to play against Tonga. (Darren England\/AAP PHOTOS)<\/p>\n

The Manly rake was not categorised as a grade one or two HIA but was ruled out of the match as a precaution. His recovery during the week convinced both Samoa and the NRL’s medical staff that he is right to take his place in the team.<\/p>\n

That development is welcomed after key forwards Jaydn Su’A and Ata Mariota were both rubbed out of the Tonga clash due to concussions.<\/p>\n

May trained at Ballymore late on Tuesday and told AAP he was keen to play alongside elite middle forwards he had always idolised.<\/p>\n

“I’ve trained and I am available,” May said at Samoa’s fan day in Logan.<\/p>\n

“I do want to play but it is not up to me. It is up to BG (Gardiner) at the end of the day.<\/p>\n

“I was carrying the injury last week but I am all good now. I am a pretty quick healer.<\/p>\n

“This is probably the best pack that I could play in. I looked up to guys like Josh Papalii and Junior Paulo growing up and obviously Payne (Haas) now.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“I am getting the experience behind them and I am trying to learn off them every single day. I will only get better.”<\/p>\n

More than 8500 supporters attended Samoa’s fan engagement day and May was a hit with fans.<\/p>\n

“It’s a great experience,” May said.<\/p>\n

“It is probably the first time I have been involved in a parade like this where I am not involved as part of the crowd. I am actually on the other side and it is crazy how our people turn up for us.<\/p>\n

“It is inspiring for me because we just don’t play for ourselves. We play for our people, our family and our culture. This is bigger than rugby league.”<\/p>\n

Samoa must beat Tonga to have any chance of playing in the Pacific Cup final on November 9.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Samoa prop Terrell May has recovered from a hamstring injury and declared himself fit to play Tonga. (Darren…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":233021,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,1348,3355,3359,3353,761,762,44,3356,3354,3357,158,85,3358,1346],"class_list":["post-233020","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nrl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-breaking-news","tag-daily-news","tag-global-news","tag-inkl","tag-national-rugby-league","tag-nationalrugbyleague","tag-news","tag-news-app","tag-news-headlines","tag-news-today","tag-nrl","tag-sports","tag-today-news","tag-world-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233020","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=233020"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233020\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/233021"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=233020"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=233020"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=233020"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}