{"id":351664,"date":"2025-12-16T12:19:23","date_gmt":"2025-12-16T12:19:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/351664\/"},"modified":"2025-12-16T12:19:23","modified_gmt":"2025-12-16T12:19:23","slug":"meninga-reveals-bears-recruitment-targets-nrl-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/351664\/","title":{"rendered":"Meninga reveals Bears recruitment targets – NRL News"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Perth Bears’ recruitment drive hasn’t gotten off to the fiery start many had hoped, but head coach Mal Meninga<\/a> isn’t worried.<\/p>\n

Meninga confirmed the club is prioritising the spine as it builds toward its inaugural NRL<\/a> season in 2027.<\/p>\n

Speaking on SEN WA Breakfast, Meninga said securing quality players at hooker, halfback, five-eighth and fullback remains the Bears’ main focus as they work toward assembling a 36-man squad.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere’s a tendency, obviously, with what we call our spine, so, that’s a nine (hooker), a seven (halfback), six (five-eighth) and one (fullback), we just got to make sure we’ve got quality people and players in those positions,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The Bears have already signed six players, including Harry Newman<\/a>, Toby Sexton<\/a>, Liam Henry<\/a>, Emarly Bitungane<\/a>, Iszac Fa’asuamaleaui<\/a> and Luke Smith<\/a>, with Meninga also stressing the importance of building around a strong forward pack.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey are really crucial to a rugby league team,\u201d Meninga said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe believe that a prop like Liam Henry<\/a> is really important for the team, and then we look at one, maybe two outside backs, plus one back-rower, a sort of 13 who’s an 80-minute player.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"NRLSYDNEY, AUSTRALIA – SEPTEMBER 21: Liam Henry of the Panthers celebrates scoring a try during the NRL Semi Final match between Canterbury Bulldogs and Penrith Panthers at Accor Stadium on September 21, 2025 in Sydney, Australia. (Photo by Mark Metcalfe\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n

Meninga said the club is taking a targeted recruitment approach rather than a broad sweep of the market.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo, we sort of target players positionally initially, and that’s what we are doing at the moment, and I think we are doing really, really well in that space,\u201d Meninga said.<\/p>\n

He also acknowledged the challenge of relocating players and their families to Perth, describing it as a major part of the build.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need 30 recruits and six development players, so we need 36 players together and their families,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cEveryone forgets about the families.\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite hopes of early success, Meninga said the Bears’ vision is long-term.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt’s about 20 years time that the Perth Bears<\/a> are a team like the Melbourne Storm<\/a> or the Brisbane Broncos<\/a>, they are continually top of the ladder, and they are trying to win a grand final every year,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Perth Bears’ recruitment drive hasn’t gotten off to the fiery start many had hoped, but head coach…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":310427,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,761,762,158,85],"class_list":["post-351664","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\/351664","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=351664"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/351664\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/310427"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=351664"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=351664"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=351664"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}