{"id":38918,"date":"2025-08-02T02:11:12","date_gmt":"2025-08-02T02:11:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/38918\/"},"modified":"2025-08-02T02:11:12","modified_gmt":"2025-08-02T02:11:12","slug":"mark-nawaqanitawase-ruled-ineligible-for-nrl-rookie-of-the-year-award","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/38918\/","title":{"rendered":"Mark Nawaqanitawase ruled ineligible for NRL rookie of the year award"},"content":{"rendered":"

Nawaqanitawase\u2019s ineligibility opens the door for Roosters teammates Rob Toia, who played Origin football for Queensland this year after just 10 NRL games, and Hugo Savala to win the rookie award.<\/p>\n

Other candidates in the running include Warriors back-rower Leka Halasima and Canberra flyer Savelio Tamale \u2013 who started the season on fire before succumbing to a knee injury \u2013 while Dragons duo Dylan Egan and Hamish Stewart and Raider Owen Pattie improve with every game.<\/p>\n

Parramatta fullback Isaiah Iongi is certainly in the mix, as is late-season bloomer and Eels teammate Joash Papalii.<\/p>\n

Eels coach Jason Ryles said of the pair: \u201cThey\u2019re both highly talented, but their work ethic away from game day is what stands out for me with them. They\u2019re both worthy recipients of the award, that\u2019s for sure.\u201d<\/p>\n

Papalii has worn the No.1 jersey since Iongi was sidelined with a broken hand a fortnight ago, but is viewed as a future five-eighth. He is set to wear the No.6 when Iongi returns, which Ryles hopes is round 25 against Nawaqanitawase\u2019s Roosters.<\/p>\n

Past NRL rookie winners include Michael Vella (1999), Jarryd Hayne (2006), Israel Folau (2007), Daly Cherry-Evans (2011), Adam Reynolds (2012), Luke Brooks (2014), Payne Haas (2019), Sam Walker (2021), and Jack Bostock, the Dolphins winger who won last year after a two-match suspension meant Lachie Galvin was ineligible.<\/p>\n

NRL is Live and Free on Channel 9 & 9Now<\/a><\/p>\n

Michael Chammas and Andrew \u201cJoey\u201d Johns dissect the upcoming NRL round, plus the latest footy news, results and analysis. Sign up for the Sin Bin newsletter<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Nawaqanitawase\u2019s ineligibility opens the door for Roosters teammates Rob Toia, who played Origin football for Queensland this year…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":38919,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,761,762,158,85],"class_list":["post-38918","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\/38918","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=38918"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38918\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/38919"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38918"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38918"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38918"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}