The All Stars match now sits in a difficult window, wedged between the pre-season challenge, the Las Vegas season opener, and the start of a 27-round NRL<\/a> campaign, all before a Rugby League<\/a> World Cup later in the year. The Brisbane Broncos<\/a> World Club Challenge against Hull KR<\/a> on February 20 has already ruled out three players who featured in last year’s All Stars match, while the Vegas-bound clubs are also expected to make a number of their stars unavailable, though in some cases the final decision will be left to the players themselves.<\/p>\n As a result, a growing list of names from last year’s clash are now in doubt, including M\u0101ori representatives Kalyn Ponga<\/a>, Dane Gagai<\/a> and Leo Thompson<\/a>, alongside Indigenous stars Dylan Lucas<\/a>, Josh Curran<\/a> and Josh Kerr<\/a>.<\/p>\n The unavailability of the Las Vegas teams also removes other potential selections, such as Dylan Brown<\/a> and Trey Mooney<\/a> from the pool.<\/p>\n The South Sydney Rabbitohs<\/a> remain one of the last clubs yet to confirm availability, with question marks hanging over Latrell Mitchell<\/a> and David Fifita<\/a> as they manage calf and rib issues, respectively.<\/p>\n Mitchell, in particular, faces further uncertainty after missing last year’s All Stars match through suspension and spending significant time sidelined in recent seasons.<\/p>\n With teams departing for the United States shortly after the All Stars fixture, the tight turnaround is increasingly being viewed as an unnecessary risk for players already navigating heavy workloads.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The long-running debate over the timing of the Indigenous and M\u0101ori All Stars clash has been reignited once…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":441954,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,761,762,158,85],"class_list":["post-441953","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\/441953","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=441953"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/441953\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/441954"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=441953"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=441953"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=441953"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
With four clubs preparing to travel to the United States just a week after the All Stars clash, several teams are reluctant to expose their key players to an additional high-intensity fixture so close to the season opener.<\/p>\n![\"Indigenous](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/GettyImages-1370104794.jpg.webp.webp\"\/)
SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA – FEBRUARY 12: Nicho Hynes of the Indigenous All Stars is tackled during the match between the Men’s Indigenous All Stars and the Men’s Maori All Stars at CommBank Stadium on February 12, 2022 in Sydney, Australia. (Photo by Mark Metcalfe\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n