{"id":663610,"date":"2026-05-11T10:08:21","date_gmt":"2026-05-11T10:08:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/663610\/"},"modified":"2026-05-11T10:08:21","modified_gmt":"2026-05-11T10:08:21","slug":"complete-rubbish-latest-joseph-suaalii-rumour-squashed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/663610\/","title":{"rendered":"“Complete rubbish”: Latest Joseph Suaalii rumour squashed"},"content":{"rendered":"

Code-hopping star Joseph Suaalii<\/a> will not be joining the PNG Chiefs<\/a> for their inaugural season unless things change dramatically.<\/p>\n

A report published by News Corp earlier on Monday announced that Suaalii’s management and the Chiefs were in conversations over potentially making him their third foundation player.<\/p>\n

The Chiefs have already managed to sign Jarome Luai<\/a> and Alex Johnston<\/a> for their inaugural season, but will now likely be holding until November 1 to lock up any more players when those contracted in 2027 but not beyond can officially negotiate with rival outfits.<\/p>\n

The outside back, who can play wing, centre or fullback, is currently pushing for a spot in the Wallabies roster for the Rugby World Cup, but could return to the NRL<\/a> as early as 2028.<\/p>\n

However, that rumour – of Suaalii potentially heading to the Chiefs for 2028 – has now been squashed, with Channel 9s Danny Weidler tweeting that the report was “complete rubbish.”<\/p>\n

\u201dReport that Joseph Suaalii<\/a> is in talks with PNG Chiefs<\/a> is false. Have talked to Chiefs and management of Suaalii and they both said it’s complete rubbish,\u201d Weidler’s post on social media side X (formerly known as Twitter) read.<\/p>\n

Of particular note is the fact Weidler is a former colleague of Michael Chammas, who has left the media to take up the general manager of football position in Port Moresby.<\/p>\n

The obvious link between Suaalii and the Chiefs given the timelines was joined by another with the club linked to another code-hopping star and former Sydney Rooster in Joseph Manu<\/a> during recent weeks.<\/p>\n

It’s believed the Roosters would attempt to make space for both Suaalii and Manu if they wanted to return to the NRL<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Another Rooster in Connor Watson<\/a> is also heavily tied to the Chiefs, while the club are set to unleash a raid on the Penrith Panthers<\/a> who have a host of elite talent off-contract at the end of 2027.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Code-hopping star Joseph Suaalii will not be joining the PNG Chiefs for their inaugural season unless things change…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":663611,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,761,762,158,85],"class_list":["post-663610","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\/663610","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=663610"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/663610\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/663611"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=663610"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=663610"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=663610"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}