{"id":736096,"date":"2026-06-14T13:54:09","date_gmt":"2026-06-14T13:54:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/736096\/"},"modified":"2026-06-14T13:54:09","modified_gmt":"2026-06-14T13:54:09","slug":"kai-pearce-paul-injured-as-rugby-league-world-cup-hopes-dented","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/736096\/","title":{"rendered":"Kai Pearce-Paul injured as Rugby League World Cup hopes dented"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Kai Pearce-Paul has suffered a pectoral injury, and initial reports Down Under suggest he could be set for an extended period on the sidelines with the Rugby League World Cup just a few months away.<\/p>\n<p>Six-time England international Pearce-Paul \u2013 who played at the previous instalment of the World Cup in 2022 \u2013 has been an NRL player since the start of 2024.<\/p>\n<p>Having featured 61 times at first-team level for Wigan Warriors and won all three major honours on offer domestically in the UK, including the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.loverugbyleague.com\/super-league\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Super League<\/a> title in 2023, the back-rower earned himself a move to Newcastle Knights.<\/p>\n<p>Ahead of this season, he then made a cross-NRL switch to join <a href=\"https:\/\/www.loverugbyleague.com\/club\/wests-tigers\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Wests Tigers<\/a>, and picked up his pec injury in their victory over Gold Coast Titans on Sunday morning.<\/p>\n<p>England star suffers injury in NRL clash with World Cup hopes dented as prognosis unclear<\/p>\n<p>Towering forward Pearce-Paul now has over 50 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.loverugbyleague.com\/nrl\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">NRL<\/a> appearances to his name, and is heading towards the milestone of 150 senior career games.<\/p>\n<p>The 25-year-old was forced off during Wests\u2019 36-28 win against the Titans, and post-match,\u00a0head coach Benji Marshall admitted the prognosis on the issue remained unclear.<\/p>\n<p>Marshall admitted: \u201c(It\u2019s) devastating.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think it\u2019s a pec injury, just the severity of it we\u2019re not sure. He\u2019ll get some scans.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe\u2019s a big part of our team and what we do, and defensively what he brings to our side.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Lewisham-born Pearce-Paul\u2019s injury comes just a few months out from <a href=\"https:\/\/www.loverugbyleague.com\/club\/england\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">England<\/a>\u2018s World Cup campaign, which begins on October 17 in Perth against Tonga.<\/p>\n<p>Four years ago, he was the unused 18th man on three occasions for Shaun Wane\u2019s side during their run to the World Cup semi-finals on home soil, but made a try-scoring international debut against Greece in that tournament as he started in the centres.<\/p>\n<p>He also crashed over for a try in 2023 against France, and was a starter in all three Tests during last autumn\u2019s Ashes Series against Australia which brought the end of Wane\u2019s tenure.<\/p>\n<p>Brian McDermott replaced Wane in the England hotseat and will be the man in charge of the upcoming World Cup.<\/p>\n<p>He had a close-up view of Pearce-Paul as he suffered his pec injury on Sunday in his role as a Titans assistant coach.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Kai Pearce-Paul has suffered a pectoral injury, and initial reports Down Under suggest he could be set for&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":736097,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,760,85],"class_list":["post-736096","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-rugby","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/736096","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=736096"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/736096\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/736097"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=736096"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=736096"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=736096"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}