{"id":83592,"date":"2025-08-20T23:40:10","date_gmt":"2025-08-20T23:40:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/83592\/"},"modified":"2025-08-20T23:40:10","modified_gmt":"2025-08-20T23:40:10","slug":"code-switch-seven-rugby-union-teams-interested-in-viliame-kikau-nrl-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/83592\/","title":{"rendered":"Code Switch?: Seven rugby union teams interested in Viliame Kikau – NRL News"},"content":{"rendered":"

Less than two months away from being able to speak with rivals at the beginning of November, Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs<\/a> star and international forward Viliame Kikau<\/a> has reportedly caught the attention of multiple rugby union teams.<\/p>\n

Arriving at Belmore in 2023 after back-to-back premierships with the Penrith Panthers<\/a>, Kikau has been instrumental to the Bulldogs’ success over the past couple of seasons, which has seen them rise from the bottom of the ladder to the top-four.<\/p>\n

In this season alone, he leads the NRL<\/a> for most charge-downs (five), has the fifth most offloads in the competition (43) and is one of the best back-rowers with his aggression and explosiveness<\/p>\n

On around $800,000, the 16-time Fijian international is set to garner a ton of interest in the next few months once he becomes available on the open market and is worthy of a wage increase.<\/p>\n

However, he could very well find himself making the code switch to rugby union.<\/p>\n

This comes as seven overseas clubs in the 15-man code are reportedly monitoring his future closely, and the temptation of playing in the Rugby World Cup might lure him to the sport.<\/p>\n

“Viliame Kikau<\/a> is reportedly in the sights of seven overseas rugby union clubs,” The Triple M Whisper\u00a0said in a segment on\u00a0Triple M Breakfast with Beau, Tarsh & Woodsy.<\/a><\/p>\n

“Kikau is off-contract at the end of 2026 and the carrot of a Rugby World Cup in Australia<\/a> representing Fiji<\/a> might be big enough to persuade Kikau to make the code switch.”<\/p>\n

The Fijian international is one of 12 Bulldogs players who are off-contract at the end of the 2026 NRL<\/a> season.<\/p>\n

Others include fullback Connor Tracey<\/a>, four-time Indigenous All Stars representative Josh Curran<\/a> and young forward trio Jack Todd<\/a>, Lipoi Hopoi<\/a> and Samuel Hughes<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Less than two months away from being able to speak with rivals at the beginning of November, Canterbury-Bankstown…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":83593,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,760,85],"class_list":["post-83592","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\/83592","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=83592"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83592\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/83593"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=83592"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=83592"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=83592"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}