{"id":244889,"date":"2025-10-27T21:02:08","date_gmt":"2025-10-27T21:02:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/244889\/"},"modified":"2025-10-27T21:02:08","modified_gmt":"2025-10-27T21:02:08","slug":"viliame-kikau-holds-informal-contract-talks-with-nrl-club-nrl-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/244889\/","title":{"rendered":"Viliame Kikau holds informal contract talks with NRL club – NRL News"},"content":{"rendered":"

In preparation for November 1, an NRL<\/a> club has reportedly held informal talks with Canterbury Bulldogs<\/a> star back-rower Viliame Kikau<\/a> in an attempt to lock down his services.<\/p>\n

Arriving at Belmore in 2023 after back-to-back premierships with the Penrith Panthers<\/a>, Kikau has been instrumental to the Bulldogs’ success over the past couple of seasons, which has seen them rise from the bottom of the ladder to the top-four.<\/p>\n

In this past season alone, he led the NRL<\/a> for most charge-downs (six), had the fourth most offloads in the competition (61) and was one of the best back-rowers with his aggression and explosiveness.<\/p>\n

On around $800,000, the 16-time Fijian international is set to garner a ton of interest from the start of November once he becomes available on the open market, and is worthy of a wage increase.<\/p>\n

However, the 30-year-old is set to remain in blue and white colours.<\/p>\n

While reports emerged earlier in the year that seven overseas rugby union clubs were closely monitoring his future<\/a>, News Corp<\/a> is reporting that Kikau and the Bulldogs have held informal talks about a potential two-year contract extension.<\/p>\n

This would keep him at the club until the end of the 2028 NRL<\/a> season.<\/p>\n

The extension would also see Kikau help bring more Fijian players to the club following the launch of the Kikau Academy and the partnership between the Bulldogs and Kaiviti Silktails that began last year.<\/p>\n

“[The support] has been massive,” Kikau told NRL.com earlier this year.<\/a><\/p>\n

“I’ve been getting messages from Gus after the games, ‘how good was that’. It’s really exciting to see the boys develop and learn new skills. It’s good to see them get a couple of wins.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In preparation for November 1, an NRL club has reportedly held informal talks with Canterbury Bulldogs star back-rower…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":83593,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,761,762,158,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-244889","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\/244889","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=244889"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244889\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/83593"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=244889"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=244889"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=244889"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}