{"id":533096,"date":"2026-03-11T10:47:36","date_gmt":"2026-03-11T10:47:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/533096\/"},"modified":"2026-03-11T10:47:36","modified_gmt":"2026-03-11T10:47:36","slug":"bears-to-chase-opening-game-against-sydney-club","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/533096\/","title":{"rendered":"Bears to chase opening game against Sydney club"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Perth Bears<\/a> are understood to have requested their opening NRL<\/a> game to be against the South Sydney Rabbitohs<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Bears, who will become the NRL’s 18th team in 2027, are in the process of building their inaugural 30-man NRL<\/a> roster, but attention will quickly turn to their first game.<\/p>\n

News Corp is now reporting the South Sydney Rabbitohs<\/a> are the desired target, with the club having a long affiliation with Perth.<\/p>\n

The Maroubra-based outfit have played a home game in Perth each year since 2009, and have the NRL’s biggest fan base in Perth.<\/p>\n

They also have prime minister’s Anthony Albanese’s support, and it’s understood part of the proposal is that he would travel west for the game.<\/p>\n

The Bears, who were also fierce rivals with the South Sydney Rabbitohs<\/a> during their North Sydney existence, will be able to draw on a number of rivalries against Sydney clubs when they enter the competition.<\/p>\n

It’s likely the Bears first game – which is to be played at home against whichever club it ultimately ends up being – will be on a Sunday afternoon in the prime-time slot on the east coast but played as an afternoon game locally.<\/p>\n

The last team to join the competition, the Dolphins<\/a>, played the Sydney Roosters<\/a> in their first game of the 2023 season on a Sunday afternoon, while the Gold Coast Titans<\/a> opened their existence back in 2007, also on a Sunday afternoon in Brisbane against the St George Illawarra Dragons<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Dolphins<\/a> managed success in their first game, upsetting the tri-colours, while the Titans came up short by two points.<\/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","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Perth Bears are understood to have requested their opening NRL game to be against the South Sydney…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":310427,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,761,762,158,85],"class_list":["post-533096","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\/533096","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=533096"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/533096\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/310427"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=533096"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=533096"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=533096"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}