\n
<\/p>\n
New Zealand Warriors<\/a> co-captain Mitchell Barnett<\/a> will be heading back to Australia<\/a> at the end of the season due to personal reasons.\u00a0<\/p>\n Originally contracted to the end of the 2027 season, Barnett now is expected to have a plethora of options, as he will look for a new team for next season and beyond.\u00a0<\/p>\n Warriors CEO Cameron George has confirmed in a statement that the 31-year-old will leave the club, expressing how appreciative the club is about what Barnett has been able to do since joining the club.<\/p>\n \u201cWe’re very sad to see this happen but Mitch and his family need to be back home,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cHe has become such a big part of our club. We love having him here and we know how much he loves it, too, but it’s important he, Clare and their boys are back around their family support network.”<\/p>\n Mitchell Barnett’s journey from Newcastle to New Zealand<\/a> has been a defining chapter in his career.\u00a0<\/p>\n His move to the Warriors gave him the platform to take on more responsibility and mature in his playstyle, eventually earning a co-captain role.<\/p>\n He also earned the opportunity to play State of Origin<\/a> games for New South Wales and be on the international stage playing for the Australian Kangaroos.<\/p>\n Get set for the footy with the FREE Zero Tackle 2026 NRL Season Guide!<\/a> Packed with 130+ pages of player profiles, team previews, insights and analysis, the 2026 NRL Season Guide<\/a> is built for fans who want the full picture. Download your free Season Guide HERE.<\/a><\/p>\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
<\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
New Zealand Warriors co-captain Mitchell Barnett will be heading back to Australia at the end of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":499740,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,761,762,158,85],"class_list":["post-499739","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\/499739","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=499739"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/499739\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/499740"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=499739"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=499739"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=499739"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}