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\n Griffin Neame launches himself at the Warriors’ defence in Christchurch.
\n \u00a9Peter Meecham
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A visit to his South Island stomping grounds has whet North Queensland prop Griffin Neame\u2019s appetite to push for a Kiwis recall ahead of the Rugby League World Cup\u00a0later this\u00a0year.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Reinstated to the Cowboys\u2019 starting pack after 11 games coming off the bench, Neame didn\u2019t have to look too far for personal positives at Christchurch\u2019s magnificent One NZ Stadium \u2013 despite the 38-20 defeat to the Warriors.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
“The loss hurt but being able to play here in Christchurch in the new stadium \u2013 I grew up just down the road \u2013 it\u2019s pretty cool,\u201d Neame told NRL.com.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
“My family\u2019s here, half of Greymouth\u2019s here, so it was pretty special.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Born and bred on the West Coast, Neame spent two seasons in the Canterbury Rugby League youth ranks with Halswell Hornets.<\/p>\n
He and his dad, former West Coast and Canterbury rep Chris, drove the six-hour round trip from Greymouth over the Southern Alps and back each gameday.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Neame managed to duck out of Cowboys camp to watch Greymouth Greyhounds edge out Hornby Panthers 28-26 in a grassroots thriller in the CRL Men\u2019s Premiership<\/p>\n
Another Greymouth High School product, former Kiwi and current Warriors assistant coach Slade Griffin, was also an enthusiastic spectator at Leslie Park.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
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Warriors v Cowboys \u2013 Round 16, 2026<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re all my mates from back home in the Greyhounds team, I got to go watch them on Saturday arvo and they got a win, too,\u201d Neame said.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThey all come to the game today, they had a good weekend and stuff like this you can\u2019t take for granted.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
As well as hailing the Greyhounds-led revival in the previously struggling rugby league heartland of the West Coast, Neame was struck by the rampant fervour for the NRL in the South Island\u2019s biggest city \u2013 underpinned by the countrywide Warriors-mania that shows no signs of abating.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
“Rugby league down here in Christchurch is getting bigger and bigger,\u201d Neame said after toiling in the engine room trenches in front of a deafening sell-out crowd of 25,365.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019ve got this stadium, it\u2019s one of the best stadiums I\u2019ve played at.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou can see how big rugby league\u2019s getting down here. When I was growing up it was all rugby, but I feel like league\u2019s slowly closing the gap.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Debuting for the Cowboys as a 20-year-old in 2021, Neame brought up his 100-game milestone for the club last month.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
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Neame runs off Taumalolo<\/p>\n
He broke into the New Zealand team in 2023 and scored a try in the momentous 30-0 rout of Australia in the Pacific Championships final in Hamilton. But after featuring in all three Tests of the Kiwis\u2019 2024 campaign, the front-rower missed out last year with Naufahu Whyte and Xavier Willison leapfrogging him.<\/p>\n
Competition for Kiwi World Cup spots is only getting more intense with the likes of Tanner Stowers-Smith emerging in a selection pool that already includes international staples James Fisher-Harris, Joseph Tapine and Moses Leota.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
But Neame is keeping a steely focus on representing his country again \u2013 and another opportunity to play at a packed One NZ Stadium.<\/p>\n
The Kiwis face the Cook Islands and the Kiwi Ferns take on France in a Christchurch double-header on October 25, the only RLWC fixtures to be played in New Zealand.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
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\n Griffin Neame launches himself at the Warriors’ defence in Christchurch.
\n \u00a9Peter Meecham
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\u201cAny opportunity to wear the Kiwis jersey, you take it, so I\u2019ll be doing all I can to get in that spot,” he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cObviously [the Cowboys] haven\u2019t gone too well the last few weeks, but I\u2019ve just got to play some better footy and hopefully I\u2019m there \u2013 fingers crossed.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019ll be pretty special, everyone wants to play in the World Cup.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Following an impressive 8-2 run, the Cowboys have slipped out of the top eight after three straight losses.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
It doesn\u2019t get any easier in Round 17, hosting a Penrith side chastened by only their second loss of 2026 last week on the Gold Coast.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt doesn\u2019t feel like we\u2019re too far away,\u201d Neame said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve sort of gone away from that football we were playing when we were winning. It\u2019s only small things, but we\u2019re digging holes [for ourselves].\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve just got to clean up those little things and I think we\u2019ll get back to where we were playing.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A visit to his South Island stomping grounds has whet North Queensland prop Griffin Neame\u2019s appetite to push…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":754194,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,761,762,158,85],"class_list":["post-754193","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\/754193","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=754193"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/754193\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/754194"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=754193"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=754193"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=754193"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}