{"id":623026,"date":"2026-04-22T07:03:14","date_gmt":"2026-04-22T07:03:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/623026\/"},"modified":"2026-04-22T07:03:14","modified_gmt":"2026-04-22T07:03:14","slug":"former-wallaby-will-genia-calls-moana-pasifika-super-rugby-exit-a-tragedy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/623026\/","title":{"rendered":"Former Wallaby Will Genia calls Moana Pasifika Super Rugby exit a \u2018tragedy\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"
Former Wallabies captain Will Genia said Moana Pasifika’s disbandment is a “tragedy”. Photo \/ Mark Mitchell<\/p>\n
Moana Pasifika chief executive Debbie Sorensen, who is also chief executive of Pasifika Medical Association, which owns the Super Rugby club, said financial obligations would be met for the remainder of the 2026 season.<\/p>\n
However, a new owner will need to come in and be able to meet the annual running costs of between $10 million and $12m to keep the side going.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, Genia said he would be open to joining new NRL start-up PNG Chiefs.<\/p>\n
The 38-year-old is a dual citizen of Australia and Papua New Guinea, with his 11-year-old daughter being schooled in the country.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf the Chiefs needed me for anything, for sure I\u2019d love to get involved,\u201d Genia told AAP.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019d love to be in like a mentoring space or a talent scout or talent ID role, or just be a part of what they\u2019re trying to build.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think the challenging thing for them will be establishing pathways and infrastructure, a professional competition. They\u2019ll need as many people as they can.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo if there was an opportunity, that\u2019d be great because there\u2019s a hell of a lot that I could offer as a player in professional environments, high-performance environments and things of that nature.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd it\u2019d be an opportunity for me to get back home.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cSo it\u2019s quite disheartening.\u201d Former Wallabies captain Will Genia said Moana Pasifika’s disbandment is a “tragedy”. Photo \/…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":623027,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,25725,14170,9659,301882,43201,21694,301881,116476,193050,760,85,1643,30139,2500,112105,1050],"class_list":{"0":"post-623026","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-rugby","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-called","11":"tag-calls","12":"tag-captain","13":"tag-disbandment","14":"tag-exit","15":"tag-former","16":"tag-genia","17":"tag-moana","18":"tag-pasifika","19":"tag-rugby","20":"tag-sports","21":"tag-super","22":"tag-tragedy","23":"tag-wallabies","24":"tag-wallaby","25":"tag-will"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/623026","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=623026"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/623026\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/623027"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=623026"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=623026"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=623026"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}