{"id":446903,"date":"2026-01-30T07:42:09","date_gmt":"2026-01-30T07:42:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/446903\/"},"modified":"2026-01-30T07:42:09","modified_gmt":"2026-01-30T07:42:09","slug":"surprise-contender-joins-race-to-coach-png-chiefs-in-2028-nrl-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/446903\/","title":{"rendered":"Surprise contender joins race to coach PNG Chiefs in 2028 – NRL News"},"content":{"rendered":"

Brisbane Broncos<\/a> assistant coach Ben Te’o<\/a> has reportedly been earmarked as a contender for the PNG Chiefs<\/a> inaugural coaching job at the start of 2028.<\/p>\n

The Chiefs, who will be based in Port Moresby, will become the NRL’s 19th team when they join the competition.<\/p>\n

The audacious expansion bid will join the NRL<\/a> just a year after the Perth Bears<\/a>, and become the NRL’s third expansion outfit in just six seasons after the Dolphins<\/a> went through their first campaign in 2023.<\/p>\n

Fox Sports are reporting that the hunt for the Chiefs’ first coach is on, and that Te’o, a former second-rower himself, could land the chair.<\/p>\n

Te’o, 39, currently is running Brisbane’s defence which was excellent at the back-end of 2025 as the club took out a surprise premiership.<\/p>\n

The former second-rower, who played 173 NRL<\/a> games and also spent time in rugby union, worked under Wayne Bennett<\/a> at the Dolphins<\/a> to start his coaching career before heading south to the Broncos, one of the clubs he played for.<\/p>\n

It had been understood the heavy favourite to land the role was current PNG Kumuls coach Jason Demetriou<\/a>, who could have picked up the post immediately after the coming Rugby League<\/a> World Cup, while Adrian Lam<\/a> is also believed to be in contention.<\/p>\n

Demetriou also has the added distraction of coaching the London Broncos<\/a> in the English Super League<\/a> this season, while he could still be involved in World Cup endeavours come November 1, the date the Chiefs will be allowed to officially begin negotiations with players.<\/p>\n

That was a major sticking point for Mal Meninga<\/a> this year, who gave up the Kangaroos job for the Ashes ahead of taking over the Perth Bears<\/a>, who have so far secured ten signatures.<\/p>\n

The NRL<\/a> and ARLC have set no timeline for naming an inaugural coach for the Chiefs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Brisbane Broncos assistant coach Ben Te’o has reportedly been earmarked as a contender for the PNG Chiefs inaugural…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":446904,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,761,762,158,85],"class_list":["post-446903","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\/446903","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=446903"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/446903\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/446904"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=446903"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=446903"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=446903"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}