{"id":76805,"date":"2025-08-18T06:42:07","date_gmt":"2025-08-18T06:42:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/76805\/"},"modified":"2025-08-18T06:42:07","modified_gmt":"2025-08-18T06:42:07","slug":"hard-running-winger-linked-with-club-switch-amid-cowboys-exit-talk-nrl-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/76805\/","title":{"rendered":"Hard-running winger linked with club switch amid Cowboys exit talk – NRL News"},"content":{"rendered":"

One of four North Queensland Cowboys<\/a> players\u00a0without a contract for next season, winger\u00a0Semi Valemei<\/a> has reportedly caught the eye\u00a0of another team.<\/p>\n

A six-time international for Fiji<\/a>, Valemei has mainly been used as a back-up option since he arrived in Townsville and is unlikely to remain on the club’s books in 2026 as they look to improve and replenish their outside back stocks.<\/p>\n

Featuring in only two matches this season, and a further 13 games after joining in mid-2023 from the Canberra Raiders<\/a>, the hard-running winger has still plenty to give on the rugby league field.<\/p>\n

The 26-year-old has been linked with a move to the Castleford Tigers<\/a>, who have set their sights on the Cowboys players as they continue to revamp their roster after failing to achieve expectations this season, per All Out Rugby League.<\/a><\/p>\n

It is understood that NRL<\/a> duo Blake Taaffe<\/a> and Mikaela Ravalawa have also found themselves on the radar of Castleford, with the former reportedly agreeing to a three-year contract to join them from 2026 onwards.<\/p>\n

The move to Castleford comes following a two-season stint with the\u00a0Canterbury Bulldogs,<\/a>\u00a0in which he was poised to be their long-term fullback at the time, but lost his position to\u00a0Connor Tracey,<\/a> who hasn’t looked back and made the No. 1 jersey his own.<\/p>\n

In May, he revealed to Zero Tackle that although his ideal decision was to remain at Belmore, he understood that rugby league is a business and his tenure in the Blue and White was coming to a close.<\/p>\n

“I’d love to stay around here. What the club’s done in the past few years and the people that have brought into it, it’s awesome,” Taaffe told Zero Tackle.<\/a><\/p>\n

“I’ve got a good relationship with the boys here and the staff. I’d love to stay, but just depends on what happens.<\/p>\n

“Rugby league’s a crazy game and at the end of the day it’s a business and whatever happens, happens.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"One of four North Queensland Cowboys players\u00a0without a contract for next season, winger\u00a0Semi Valemei has reportedly caught the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":76806,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,761,762,158,85],"class_list":["post-76805","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\/76805","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=76805"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76805\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/76806"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=76805"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=76805"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=76805"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}