{"id":256962,"date":"2025-11-02T05:49:12","date_gmt":"2025-11-02T05:49:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/256962\/"},"modified":"2025-11-02T05:49:12","modified_gmt":"2025-11-02T05:49:12","slug":"pacific-championship-rugby-league-live-updates-nz-kiwis-v-tonga","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/256962\/","title":{"rendered":"Pacific Championship rugby league live updates: NZ Kiwis v Tonga"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Kiwis will look to avenge last year&#8217;s controversial 25-24 loss, when they face Tonga in the Pacific Championships at Eden Park.<\/p>\n<p>A victory would see them earn a repeat meeting with Toa Samoa in the final in Sydney on 9 November.<\/p>\n<p>Four changes include Brisbane Broncos forward Xavier Willison, who will debut alongside cousin Te Maire Martin, named as the side&#8217;s interchange utility in jersey No. 14. Used off the bench against Samoa, Newcastle&#8217;s Phoenix Crossland starts at hooker this week, while Canberra&#8217;s Sebastian Kris is the other change, coming onto the wing for the injured Ronaldo Mulitalo.<\/p>\n<p>Kickoff is at 6.05pm.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/4JYKA2M_251102NZLvTongaXIII_003_JPG\" width=\"1050\" height=\"700\" alt=\"The cultural challenge during New Zealand Kiwis v Tonga XIII, round 3 of the Pacific Championships at Eden Park, Auckland.\"\/><\/p>\n<p class=\"photo-captioned__information\">\nKiwis face the Tongan challenge at Eden Park.<br \/>\nPhoto: Photosport<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Kiwis will look to avenge last year&#8217;s controversial 25-24 loss, when they face Tonga in the Pacific&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":256963,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,1590,63,1589,44,1591,1588,1586,1587,760,85],"class_list":["post-256962","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-au","tag-audio","tag-australia","tag-current-affairs","tag-news","tag-podcasts","tag-public-radio","tag-radio-new-zealand","tag-rnz","tag-rugby","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/256962","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=256962"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/256962\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/256963"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=256962"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=256962"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=256962"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}