{"id":726508,"date":"2026-06-10T03:13:20","date_gmt":"2026-06-10T03:13:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/726508\/"},"modified":"2026-06-10T03:13:20","modified_gmt":"2026-06-10T03:13:20","slug":"four-or-five-clubs-interested-folaus-brother-lifts-lid-on-possible-nrl-return","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/726508\/","title":{"rendered":"“Four or five clubs interested”: Folau’s brother lifts lid on possible NRL return"},"content":{"rendered":"

The circus surrounding Israel Folau’s potential return to the NRL<\/a> is continuing, with his older brother revealing it’s not just the Wests Tigers<\/a> interested.<\/p>\n

A bombshell report surfaced on Tuesday morning suggesting the code-hopping outside back, now 37 years of age, is interested in an NRL<\/a> return and was in talks with the Wests Tigers<\/a> over a potential train and trial deal.<\/p>\n

2GB Radio revealed the veteran could sign a train and trial deal with the joint-venture before this year’s June 30 deadline.<\/p>\n

Other reports surfaced on Tuesday afternoon revealing the Wests Tigers<\/a> wanted no part of his signature.<\/p>\n

But his older brother David Folau has now revealed it’s not just the Tigers interested, with his management talking to “four or five clubs.”<\/p>\n

\u201cIsrael has a management team and they have received interest from four or five clubs and they have been great to deal with,\u201d The senior Folau told Wide World of Sports<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt’s just a question of sorting out a few details and hopefully a deal can be done.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Tigers, per the report, are still believed to be the favourites despite their public denial, while the other clubs are not known at this stage – although there is a fair guess clubs chasing outside backs, like the St George Illawarra Dragons<\/a>, Canterbury Bulldogs<\/a>, and even his former outfit the Brisbane Broncos<\/a> may be showing some level of interest.<\/p>\n

All three clubs have little salary cap wiggle room, but at his age, Folau would come cheap.<\/p>\n

It was confirmed by his older brother though, that the talks between Folau and Tigers coach Benji Marshall<\/a> have been “very positive.”<\/p>\n

The controversial former Storm, Broncos and Catalans Dragons<\/a> rugby league player who managed five Origins for Queensland and eight Tests for Australia<\/a> also spent time in the AFL<\/a> with the Greater Western Sydney Giants between 2011 and 2012, and rugby union where he played 73 Tests for Australia<\/a> between 2013 and 2019.<\/p>\n

Prior to his departure from the NRL<\/a>, he was tracking to become one of the greatest try-scorers of all-time, notching 73 tries in his first 91 games between 2007 and 2010.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The circus surrounding Israel Folau’s potential return to the NRL is continuing, with his older brother revealing it’s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":726509,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,761,762,158,85],"class_list":["post-726508","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\/726508","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=726508"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/726508\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/726509"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=726508"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=726508"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=726508"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}