{"id":317603,"date":"2025-11-30T01:27:17","date_gmt":"2025-11-30T01:27:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/317603\/"},"modified":"2025-11-30T01:27:17","modified_gmt":"2025-11-30T01:27:17","slug":"cowboys-lose-two-for-start-of-nrl-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/317603\/","title":{"rendered":"Cowboys lose two for start of NRL season"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Jeremiah Nanai and Griffin Neame will miss the start of the NRL season through injury in a blow to North Queensland&#8217;s hopes of recovering from a poor 2025.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">But winger Murray Taulagi is expected to resume full training after Christmas despite leaving the field in the Pacific Cup final with a knee injury.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Queensland representative Nanai has undergone reconstructive surgery on the shoulder that he injured during Samoa&#8217;s win over Tonga in late October.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Neame has suffered a setback in his recovery from surgery on his season-ending shoulder injury and will not play round one as initially planned.<\/p>\n<p><img alt=\"Neame\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"960\" height=\"540\" decoding=\"async\" data-nimg=\"1\" class=\"rounded-lg\" style=\"color:transparent\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/eede8ab8d3a490921f0562ba1fab160a.jpeg\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Griffin Neame (r) and the Cowboys endured a trying 2025 season. (Dave Hunt\/AAP PHOTOS)<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The important forwards will be absent as the Cowboys begin bouncing back from a 12th-placed finish that prompted questions over Todd Payten&#8217;s future as coach.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Neither will play in the Cowboys&#8217; Las Vegas season opener against Newcastle, with the club expecting to have a clearer timeline on their return dates in the new year.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Samoan international Taulagi is expected to play round one as he nears recovery from his medial cruciate ligament injury.<\/p>\n<p><img alt=\"Taulagi\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"960\" height=\"540\" decoding=\"async\" data-nimg=\"1\" class=\"rounded-lg\" style=\"color:transparent\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/f34ef63dfe662ae341eeddef54c367af.jpeg\"\/><\/p>\n<p>The news is positive on Murray Taulagi&#8217;s return. (Dave Hunt\/AAP PHOTOS)<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Luckless forward Heilum Luki is also expected to play round one after missing the entire 2025 season with the second anterior cruciate ligament injury of his career.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The Cowboys begin 2026 with a handful of seemingly winnable games, with the Knights, Wests Tigers, Gold Coast and St George Illawarra awaiting across the first five rounds.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The club have welcomed Reed Mahoney as replacement for outgoing hooker Reece Robson; the former Canterbury captain began pre-season earlier this month.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Nanai and Neame&#8217;s absences come a year after talismanic forward Jason Taumalolo injured his foot in the 2024 Pacific Championships and so missed the start of 2025.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jeremiah Nanai and Griffin Neame will miss the start of the NRL season through injury in a blow&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":317604,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,179191,179192,3512,179193,761,762,26673,158,85,34775],"class_list":["post-317603","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nrl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-griffin-neame","tag-jeremiah-nanai","tag-knee-injury","tag-murray-taulagi","tag-national-rugby-league","tag-nationalrugbyleague","tag-north-queensland","tag-nrl","tag-sports","tag-the-cowboys"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/317603","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=317603"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/317603\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/317604"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=317603"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=317603"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=317603"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}