Join now and get your first month for just $1<\/a>.<\/p>\n\u201cThe Perth Bears are the most exciting story in Australian sport,\u201d Perth Bears chief executive Anthony De Ceglie said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhile our club is new, it is not without history and we move forward on the foundations of both the North Sydney Bears and rugby league in WA.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re extremely proud to be taking the red-and-black colours into a brand new era while also honouring our history.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rugby league legend and head coach of the Perth Bears Mal Meninga poses with the newly unveiled Bears jersey in Perth, 07 August 2026. Picture: SuppliedSource: Supplied Source Known<\/p>\n
The North Sydney Bears were one of the foundation clubs 118 years ago, with the founding year and original logo to feature on the back collar of the new jersey.<\/p>\n
The foundation jersey partners include principal partner Cash Converters, premier partner Budget Direct, as well as major partners Penrite Oil, Atlas and XFM.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s really important to acknowledge our history, but also to create a new identity for the Bears here on the west coast,\u201d Meninga said.<\/p>\n
\u201cA bear doesn\u2019t shy away, a bear stands up, a bear is bold and courageous, which is exactly what we are going to be.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are focused on building a club that WA and North Sydney will be proud of and we will have a team that will do that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mal loves ‘bold’ new Bears jersey | 00:56<\/p>\n
The jersey launch is the latest milestone for the club who announced on Thursday that English international Morgan Smithies was the latest key signing after he inked a long-term deal to leave Canberra at the end of the season.<\/p>\n
Despite that signing, the Bears\u2019 inaugural roster has still been widely criticised for lacking a true marquee player \u2014 something that Meninga took exception to when asked on Friday.<\/p>\n
\u201cLet me be frank with this. I\u2019m really excited about the roster we\u2019ve built,\u201d Meninga said. <\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve got great belief in the players we\u2019ve already already got. We\u2019re 25 deep already and to start the year we only need 24 and to start the season we need 28. <\/p>\n
V’Landys backs Bears for success | 00:53<\/p>\n
\u201cSo honestly, what is a marquee? How do you describe a marquee or high profile? <\/p>\n
\u201cYou look through the team, we\u2019ve got some high-profile players already and we\u2019ve certainly got players of the future, there\u2019s no doubt. <\/p>\n
\u201cYou look at the age groups, it\u2019s from 22 to 28, we\u2019ve got Scotty Sorenson coming over as well at 31. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve got a team for the future as well. There\u2019s no doubt we want to be competitive.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Bears coach Mal Meninga has hit back at criticism of the club\u2019s roster-building strategy as Perth unveiled its…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":846557,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,761,762,158,85],"class_list":["post-846556","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\/846556","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=846556"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/846556\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/846557"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=846556"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=846556"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=846556"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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