{"id":304527,"date":"2025-11-24T00:50:10","date_gmt":"2025-11-24T00:50:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/304527\/"},"modified":"2025-11-24T00:50:10","modified_gmt":"2025-11-24T00:50:10","slug":"perth-bears-secure-signature-of-england-international","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/304527\/","title":{"rendered":"Perth Bears secure signature of England international"},"content":{"rendered":"

Perth have finally landed their first major signing with English international Harry Newman agreeing to join the Bears on a long-term deal.<\/p>\n

The 25-year-old centre has inked a three-year contract and will be one of the club\u2019s headline recruits as they prepare for their NRL entry.<\/p>\n

Newman will complete his final season with Leeds in the Super League before linking up with Mal Meninga\u2019s squad in Perth.<\/p>\n

The England representative has played more than 100 games for Leeds since debuting in 2017 and recently featured in the third Ashes Test against Australia.<\/p>\n

MORE: Jayden Campbell signs new deal in Bears vs Titans tug of war<\/a><\/p>\n

Newman\u2019s arrival marks a major breakthrough for the Bears after missing out on several high-profile targets, including Titans<\/a> halfback Jayden Campbell.<\/p>\n

\"Harry<\/p>\n

The Bears have secured additional young talent with Canterbury forward Luke Smith and former Cowboy Marly Bitungane set to sign on.<\/p>\n

Both forwards will spend a year playing in London before officially joining Perth as part of their development strategy.<\/p>\n

While some younger players have been secured by the new NRL franchise, such as Smith and Bitungane, very few NRL starting-calibre players have been interested in being part of the Bears\u2019 first NRL season.<\/p>\n

The recruitment drought has seen pressure heaped on the Bears\u2019 administration, and in particular inaugural coach Mal Meninga, who has recently pushed a strategy of patience to get the mix right on the Bears\u2019 roster.<\/p>\n

It is why Newman\u2019s signing is a significant statement for the expansion club, who desperately need to start piecing together a starting squad capable of competing at NRL level.<\/p>\n

The Bears will be hoping Newman\u2019s signature will see other high-profile and experienced players follow, with the coming months crucial to the Bears\u2019 recruitment and indeed their long-term success.<\/p>\n

Newman is a strong starting point, but the Bears will need to build on that signing to stave off the noise around their early struggles to attract top-tier NRL talent.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Perth have finally landed their first major signing with English international Harry Newman agreeing to join the Bears…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":304528,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,761,762,158,85],"class_list":["post-304527","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nrl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-national-rugby-league","tag-nationalrugbyleague","tag-nrl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/304527","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=304527"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/304527\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/304528"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=304527"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=304527"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=304527"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}