![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/perth-bear-28a587e61820.jpg\")
<\/p>\nRugby League media personality James \u2018Sully\u2019 Sullivan spoke to\u00a0Sports Breakfast\u00a0on Thursday morning, giving an inside scoop on who we can expect to see at the Perth Bears in 2026.<\/p>\n
The NRL\u2019s 17 team competition is set to expand to 19 teams by 2028 with the addition of WA\u2019s Perth Bears and Papau New Guinea\u2019s Chiefs.<\/p>\n
Sullivan claims Bears General Manager Dave Sharpe said we can expect to see 10 players named before Christmas.<\/p>\n
The Bears have already named English centre Harry Newman and Toby Sexton from the Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs as their first official signings.<\/p>\n
Upon speaking on more potential signings, Sullivan said he doesn\u2019t believe many players stand out from the rest in the current era of NRL.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t think there\u2019s that many big names in the game anymore,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m not degrading the competition I think its wonderful, I think that\u2019s why its great at the moment because we\u2019ve got even play\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cthe fitness level of the game is elite, the skill level of the game is elite\u2026 whoever you\u2019re gonna get is gonna do the job\u201d<\/p>\n
Sully also mentioned Luke Smith from the Bulldogs and Emarly Bitungane from the North Queensland Cowboys are likely heading west, and won\u2019t be seen playing in the NRL in 2026.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll these players signed at the moment, we won\u2019t see them play in the NRL in 2026, they will all be playing in the super league,\u201d said Sullivan.<\/p>\n
Perth\u2019s new addition to it\u2019s sporting scene will hopefully gain NRL popularity in the West, with the redeveloped WACA and accompanying water bank set to home the Bears\u2019 training facilities.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think they\u2019ll hit the ground running, I was a little bit worried about a month ago about how it was all coming along but I\u2019m starting to get a bit excited.\u201d<\/p>\n
IMAGE: Perth Bears<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Rugby League media personality James \u2018Sully\u2019 Sullivan spoke to\u00a0Sports Breakfast\u00a0on Thursday morning, giving an inside scoop on who…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":337571,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,761,762,158,85],"class_list":["post-337570","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\/337570","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=337570"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/337570\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/337571"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=337570"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=337570"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=337570"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}