Watch every second of the 2026 Nations Championship live and on demand via Stan Sport.<\/a><\/p>\n“I thought my journey was overseas and that was going to be me for the rest of my career. In Australia, in Queensland, is where I want to be and excited is an understatement,” Perese said in a statement.<\/p>\n
“It’s an exciting time for rugby in Australia as a whole. The Rugby World Cup next year is obviously a goal but what comes first is playing good rugby here at the Reds.<\/p>\n
“Playing for your country is the pinnacle. All I can do to get back there is solely going to come from doing my job to the best of my ability for Queensland,” Perese said.<\/p>\n
The former Australian U20s centre spent three years with the Reds before heading overseas to Bayonne after a brief stint in the NRL, eventually signing with the NSW Waratahs.<\/p>\n
It’s at the Waratahs where the midfielder would break out, making his Wallabies debut in 2021 after a breakout season in the sky blue.<\/p>\n
He’d play six games for the Wallabies, including the 2023 Rugby World Cup, departing for Leicester the year afterwards.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are pleased to welcome Izaia back to Australian Rugby at a pivotal time for the game,” RA Head of High Performance Peter Horne said.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe is a powerful athlete who is experienced and motivated to contribute to Queensland and the wider Australian system.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHis signing reflects our focus on strengthening our depth and ensuring our best athletes are playing their rugby here in Australia.”<\/p>\n
His return is timely for the Reds, with Hunter Paisami and Josh Flook expected to leave at the end of the year.<\/p>\n
“It’s great to welcome Izzy back to the Reds,” Queensland Reds General Manager, High Performance, Sam Cordingley, said.<\/p>\n
“He brings a wealth of experience from his time in the French Top 14 and English Premiership so he’ll be a great addition to our squad over the next few years.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Izaia Perese has returned to Australian Rugby, signing with the Queensland Reds for two seasons. It’s a homecoming…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":811305,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,386264,44,12061,48013],"class_list":["post-811304","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-izaia-perese","tag-news","tag-queensland-reds","tag-super-rugby-pacific"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/811304","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=811304"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/811304\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/811305"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=811304"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=811304"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=811304"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}