New to Kayo? Join now and get your first month for just $1.<\/a><\/p>\nPonissi believes age is on Papenhuyzen\u2019s side, with the 27-year-old wanting to explore other opportunities outside of the NRL in 2026.<\/p>\n
It was rumoured he was heading to R360 but the rebel rugby union competition left several athletes in limbo by postponing their start date from 2026 to 2028. <\/p>\n
Papenhuyzen has endured a tough run with injuries over the past few years which Ponissi noted, but the Storm administrator believes the fullback has \u201cgot so much more to offer\u201d the NRL. <\/p>\n
\u201cI hope does (return to the NRL) \u2026 But in fairness to Paps, he\u2019s gone through a fair bit over the last few years,\u201d Ponissi told radio station SEN.<\/p>\n
\u201cH showed enormous resilience, but the stress and everything it took to get through all those injuries took its toll.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s only 27 and he\u2019s still got plenty left.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf he re-energises himself in 12 months, we might see him back, which would be a great thing for the game.<\/p>\n
\u201cHaving a year off might be the tonic for him to come back and continue.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ponissi didn\u2019t say if a position at the Storm would be available for Papenhuyzen if he chooses to return. Melbourne are set to hand the No. 1 to the exciting Sua Fa\u2019alogo. <\/p>\n
If Papenhuyzen does return to the game in 2027, there are several teams who would be interested in signing him with the Dragons and Sharks atop that list. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Star fullback Ryan Papenhuyzen is set to take a year off professional sport in 2026 after being granted…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":348745,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[112846,64,63,4428,11288,4466,761,762,4495,158,192312,129985,159,2619,161114,85,82522,42318],"class_list":["post-348744","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nrl","tag-adam-head","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-brisbane-broncos","tag-grand-final","tag-melbourne-storm","tag-national-rugby-league","tag-nationalrugbyleague","tag-newcastle-knights","tag-nrl","tag-opportunities-outside","tag-professional-sport","tag-rugby-league","tag-rugby-union-competition","tag-shock-exit","tag-sports","tag-star-fullback","tag-start-date"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/348744","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=348744"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/348744\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/348745"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=348744"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=348744"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=348744"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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