{"id":451343,"date":"2026-02-01T09:32:08","date_gmt":"2026-02-01T09:32:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/451343\/"},"modified":"2026-02-01T09:32:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-01T09:32:08","slug":"leigh-leopards-star-reveals-nrl-dream-as-super-league-hope-clear","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/451343\/","title":{"rendered":"Leigh leopards star reveals NRL dream as Super league hope clear"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Leigh\u2019s new recruit Jacob Alick-Wiencke admits he hopes to earn a return to the NRL, but not before he has delivered a first Super League title to the Leopards faithful.<\/p>\n<p>Papua New Guinea international Alick-Wiencke has put pen to paper on a three-year deal at the Leopards\u2019 Den ahead of 2026.<\/p>\n<p>The versatile forward has arrived in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.loverugbyleague.com\/super-league\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Super League<\/a> from NRL outfit Gold Coast Titans, who he made his first-grade bow for back in July 2023.<\/p>\n<p>But having struggled to ever cement a regular spot in an NRL side, the 26-year-old has a point to prove, and intends on making his mark in the British game.<\/p>\n<p>Want more Love Rugby League? Add us as a <a rel=\"noopener nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/preferences\/source?q=loverugbyleague.com\" target=\"_blank\">preferred source on Google<\/a> and ensure you never miss our exclusives and breaking news!<\/p>\n<p>New Leigh Leopards recruit harbouring NRL hope with Super League ambitions clear<\/p>\n<p>Alick-Wiencke \u2013 who has 11 Test caps to his name for PNG \u2013 played a total of 19 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.loverugbyleague.com\/nrl\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">NRL<\/a> games, with all of those coming for the Titans, including eight last year.<\/p>\n<p>His experience at club level has more often than not been at second-grade level, with the Brisbane-born powerhouse clocking up 81 Queensland Cup appearances.<\/p>\n<p>Speaking to LoveRugbyLeague during Leigh\u2019s pre-season media day earlier this week, he explained: \u201cI\u2019m coming over here first and foremost to prove to myself that I\u2019m still at that level.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI personally think I\u2019m still at a high enough level to play in the NRL, but this is an opportunity to come over here and play week in, week out.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI was on the fringes in Australia, so I\u2019ll try to assert my dominance (in Super League) and make a bit of a name for myself, or at least a bit more of a name for myself over here.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Alick-Wiencke joins a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.loverugbyleague.com\/tag\/leigh-leopards\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Leigh<\/a> side headed up by fellow Kumul Adrian Lam which finished third in Super League last season before being beaten in the play-off semi-finals away at Wigan Warriors for the second year running<\/p>\n<p>No secret has been made of the Leopards\u2019 desire to put more silverware in their cabinet following the 2023 Challenge Cup win, and that ethos is one that\u2019s shared by Alick-Wiencke.<\/p>\n<p>He continued: \u201cI want to play the football that I know I can play, and in the long run, it\u2019ll help me get back to Australia.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBut I\u2019m not looking that far ahead just yet, I\u2019m looking forward to hopefully winning a comp here with Leigh first!<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019ll see where it takes me.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Leigh\u2019s new recruit Jacob Alick-Wiencke admits he hopes to earn a return to the NRL, but not before&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":451344,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,761,762,158,85],"class_list":["post-451343","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\/451343","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=451343"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/451343\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/451344"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=451343"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=451343"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=451343"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}