{"id":66634,"date":"2025-08-14T03:14:08","date_gmt":"2025-08-14T03:14:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/66634\/"},"modified":"2025-08-14T03:14:08","modified_gmt":"2025-08-14T03:14:08","slug":"payne-haas-quits-kangaroos-for-samoa-jeremiah-nanai-ashes-rugby-league-world-cup-blow-for-new-coach-kevin-walters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/66634\/","title":{"rendered":"Payne Haas quits Kangaroos for Samoa, Jeremiah Nanai, Ashes, Rugby League World Cup blow for new coach Kevin Walters"},"content":{"rendered":"

Payne Haas has defected from Australia to Samoa ahead of the looming Ashes tour and next year\u2019s Rugby League World Cup, in a hammer blow to new Kangaroos coach Kevin Walters.<\/p>\n

CODE Sports<\/a> first reported the news on Thursday, saying that Jeremiah Nani had also confirmed his defection, having played for Australia in 2022 but then Samoa last year.<\/p>\n

Haas has played just four Tests in green and gold but was Australia\u2019s leading front-rower. He will now be in action for Samoa at this year\u2019s Pacific Championships, rather than heading to England with the Kangaroos.<\/p>\n

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CODE reported that Haas had informed Samoa players of his switch and could debut on October 19 against New Zealand in Auckland.<\/p>\n

The decision will put even more scrutiny on current eligibility laws around State of Origin and international allegiance, with Haas a NS Blues mainstay.<\/p>\n

Payne Haas has left the Kangaroos.Source: Getty Images<\/p>\n

Tino Fa\u2019asuamaleaui and Hamiso Tabuai-Fidow have also been touted to switch allegiance to Samoa, which would further strip the Kangaroos of talent at a critical time in the international calendar.<\/p>\n

Walters told CODE<\/a> that he had spoken to the trio but not tried to force them into playing for Australia.<\/p>\n

\u201cI totally respect their decision and I\u2019m not trying to force them to play for the Kangaroos,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve certainly spoken to them about myself and the Kangaroos and got my point across, so I\u2019m happy with that<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m very happy with the way it was received and now they just need to get back playing now and get themselves back in top form.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Payne Haas has defected from Australia to Samoa ahead of the looming Ashes tour and next year\u2019s Rugby…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":66635,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,689,1208,2057,763,2105,4486,7681,52921,52919,3194,52918,761,762,3583,158,677,26598,13390,20853,159,5993,52920,85],"class_list":["post-66634","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nrl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-australia-and-new-zealand","tag-england","tag-europe","tag-fox-league","tag-getty-images-inc","tag-hammer-blow","tag-ian-hitchcock","tag-jeremiah-nani","tag-kangaroos-bombshell","tag-kevin-walters","tag-league-world-cup","tag-national-rugby-league","tag-nationalrugbyleague","tag-northern-europe","tag-nrl","tag-oceania","tag-pat-carrigan","tag-payne-haas","tag-polynesia","tag-rugby-league","tag-samoa","tag-samoanrl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66634","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=66634"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66634\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/66635"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=66634"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=66634"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=66634"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}