{"id":817340,"date":"2026-07-22T21:18:13","date_gmt":"2026-07-22T21:18:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/817340\/"},"modified":"2026-07-22T21:18:13","modified_gmt":"2026-07-22T21:18:13","slug":"nrl-news-2026-phil-gould-tells-perth-bears-dont-panic-despite-lack-of-players-signed-png-chiefs-recruitment-analysis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/817340\/","title":{"rendered":"NRL news 2026: Phil Gould tells Perth Bears \u2018don\u2019t panic\u2019 despite lack of players signed, PNG Chiefs recruitment, analysis"},"content":{"rendered":"

Phil Gould<\/a> has urged Perth Bears<\/a> officials not to panic yet, despite signing very few top-line players for their inaugural 2027 season.<\/p>\n

The latest expansion franchise has faced plenty of scrutiny for its recruitment, especially when the PNG Chiefs<\/a> – who come into the league a year later – have already landed Jarome Luai<\/a> and appear to be closing in on Joseph Manu<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"Chiefs<\/p>\n

Jarome Luai signs his PNG Chiefs contract.\u00a0Supplied<\/p>\n

Perth have signed some steady, solid first graders and a handful of Super League<\/a> players, but have yet to strike a major blow in terms of a marquee recruit and right now, their most high-profile players are Tyran Wishart<\/a> and Toby Sexton<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The new club still has plenty of room available in both its top 30 roster and salary cap, but Gould said it isn\u2019t time to start worrying yet.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m saying no to them getting a wriggle on, but they do need to sign some quality and that will come in time,\u201d he said on Wide World Of Sports\u2019 Six Tackles With Gus<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a long race, don\u2019t panic – I remember when the Dolphins<\/a> were coming in, people were panicking about them and what they had, but I kept saying they were doing it right, buying a lot of good young kids, because it\u2019s a long-term process.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not about what you do in year one, it\u2019s whether you\u2019re still there in year five and year 10, if you\u2019re gonna build these new clubs. I\u2019m sure Perth will have a long-term view towards that, but it\u2019s gonna be very difficult for Perth in this market.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo put together a top-eight team in their first year, I think that\u2019s an unrealistic expectation. The key for Perth is what they look like in five years or 10 years\u2019 time and then in 20, 30, 40 and 50 years\u2019 time, that\u2019s what they are setting up for.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll they can do now is sign who\u2019s available or who is willing to go there.\u201d<\/p>\n

He also cautioned people against getting too excited about the Chiefs, despite the tax-free dollars on offer and their strong early recruitment drive.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re not gonna find it easy,\u201d Gould said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI know they\u2019re advertising some high-profile interviews and recruits at the moment, but it\u2019s not gonna be easy. They\u2019ve gotta set that up for the longer term that unites their country, which means a lot of locals playing in that squad. <\/p>\n

\u201cThey can\u2019t keep coming to Australia to buy players to make their team competitive, it eventually has to represent PNG. <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

St George Illawarra are stranded on the bottom of the ladder.\u00a0Getty Images<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the short-term, corporate support and their performance and notoriety, they need to sign some marquee players \u2026 but it\u2019s not gonna be easy for them to fill those roles, even if they are offering tax-free money.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gould\u2019s comments come after a heated debate with Paul Gallen<\/a> over the merits of adding more teams to the NRL, where he accused the Sharks legend as having a \u201cshort-sighted\u201d view of where the game is headed and potential growth.<\/p>\n

Gallen pointed to the lack of success for teams like the Dragons<\/a> and that said adding more teams would only dilute the talent pool across 18, 19 or possibly 20 clubs.<\/p>\n

Billy Slater<\/a> also admitted the addition of two more teams – and potentially a third in the coming years – would have an impact on the competition. <\/p>\n

\u201cEvery game will drop in quality,\u201d he said on Nine\u2019s The Billy Slater Podcast<\/a>.<\/p>\n

While there are mixed views on the NRL\u2019s continued expansion plans, the reality is the Bears are just months away from their first pre-season and still have plenty of room to improve when it comes to their inaugural squad.<\/p>\n

As alluded to by Gould, they can only sign who is available – which admittedly does make it a tough task – but there are still some valuable players on the market.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Mal Meninga speaks to media in Perth.\u00a0Getty<\/p>\n

The most obvious handful of available names the Bears should be looking at right now are Kodi Nikorima<\/a>, Ronald Volkman, Matt Dufty<\/a> and Billy Walters – any of whom would add much-needed quality in the spine, but also give them multiple years of service as opposed to being a bandaid solution for just one season.<\/p>\n

Mal Meninga and his recruitment staff could also look to add some shorter-term, experienced players, particularly in the forward pack, with the likes of Tyson Frizell<\/a>, Braden Hamlin-Uele and Junior Paulo<\/a> without contracts for 2027.<\/p>\n

Potential 2027 targets for Perth Bears<\/p>\n

Billy Walters, Morgan Smithies, Jonathan Sua, Lipoi Hopoi, Braden Hamlin-Uele, Hohepa Puru, Kodi Nikorima, Ray Stone, Shawn Blore, Tyson Frizell, Kaiden Lahrs, Murray Taulagi, Junior Paulo, Joash Papalii, Jack de Belin, Kelma Tuilagi, Ronald Volkman, Will Penisini, Christian Tuipulotu, Matt Dufty, Rocco Berry<\/p>\n

Perth Bears 2027 squad currently<\/p>\n

Toby Sexton, Harry Newman, Emarly Bitungane, Luke Smith, Iszac Fa\u2019asuamaleaui, Liam Henry, Sean Russell, Josh Curran, Tyran Wishart, Nick Meaney, Chris Vea\u2019ila, James McDonnell, Luke Laulilii, Scott Sorensen, Siosifa Talakai, Mikolaj Oledzki, Te Hurinui \u2018Apa\u2019 Twidle, Kit Laulilii, Mason Barber, AJ Gudgeon, Mavrik Geyer<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Phil Gould has urged Perth Bears officials not to panic yet, despite signing very few top-line players for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":817341,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,761,762,158,85],"class_list":["post-817340","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\/817340","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=817340"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/817340\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/817341"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=817340"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=817340"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=817340"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}