{"id":433339,"date":"2026-01-24T00:40:09","date_gmt":"2026-01-24T00:40:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/433339\/"},"modified":"2026-01-24T00:40:09","modified_gmt":"2026-01-24T00:40:09","slug":"titans-youngster-weighing-up-backflip-on-club-switch-nrl-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/433339\/","title":{"rendered":"Titans youngster weighing up backflip on club switch – NRL News"},"content":{"rendered":"

Gold Coast Titans<\/a> youngster Cooper Bai<\/a> is reportedly weighing up backflipping on a move to the Melbourne Storm<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The impressive young lock forward made his NRL<\/a> debut in Round 27 of the 2025 season against the Wests Tigers<\/a>, and is set for more action this year as Josh Hannay<\/a> looks to rapidly rebuild the Titans.<\/p>\n

The amount of minutes he could see took a turn at the end of this week too, with confirmation prop Jaimin Jolliffe<\/a> has suffered a season-ending ACL injury.<\/p>\n

Bai, per a Code Sports report though, is close to signing with the Melbourne Storm<\/a> for 2027 and beyond, but is now having second thoughts.<\/p>\n

As it stands, Melbourne has already added Dolphins<\/a> second-rower Oryn Keeley<\/a> for 2027, while Jack Hetherington<\/a> and Davvy Moale<\/a> have joined for 2026. Moale will leave at the end of 2026 to link up with the Manly Sea Eagles<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The club is looking to rebuild their own forward pack after two straight grand final losses, with the Victorian-based outfit losing Nelson Asofa-Solomona<\/a> for 2026, while the long-term future of Tui Kamikamica<\/a> and Shawn Blore<\/a> remains up in the air.<\/p>\n

Bai would be an exceptional signing for the Storm as they look to future-proof the club, but the report suggests coach\u00a0Hannay and head of football Scott Sattler have held emergency meetings with Bai in a bid to retain his services on the glitter strip.<\/p>\n

The Titans are understandably desperate to retain his signature, despite the report suggesting Bai, now 19 years of age, has one foot out the door at the club.<\/p>\n

Bai played for the Queensland under-19 side this year and reportedly told the Titans of his intentions to join the Storm prior to Christmas, but he is yet to sign.<\/p>\n

It’s understood the Titans have offered a three-year deal to Bai, which would keep him at Robina until the end of 2029.<\/p>\n

The Sydney Roosters<\/a> were also interested, but dropped out under the understanding that his signature in Melbourne was done.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Gold Coast Titans youngster Cooper Bai is reportedly weighing up backflipping on a move to the Melbourne Storm.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":194583,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,761,762,158,85],"class_list":["post-433339","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\/433339","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=433339"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/433339\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/194583"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=433339"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=433339"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=433339"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}