{"id":874686,"date":"2026-08-31T06:08:18","date_gmt":"2026-08-31T06:08:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/874686\/"},"modified":"2026-08-31T06:08:18","modified_gmt":"2026-08-31T06:08:18","slug":"injured-luai-makes-surprise-png-golf-visit-what-are-parramatta-thinking","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/874686\/","title":{"rendered":"Injured Luai makes surprise PNG golf visit: \u2018What are Parramatta thinking?\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

Injured Luai makes surprise PNG golf visit: ‘What are Parramatta thinking?’<\/a> originally appeared on The Sporting News<\/a>. Add The Sporting News as a Preferred Source by clicking here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Conflicts of interest have been in the NRL news quite a bit during 2026.<\/p>\n

While mostly it’s been in relation to media figures, the recent actions of current Wests Tigers<\/a> captain and 2027 Parramatta Eels<\/a> playmaker Jarome Luai have raised serious concerns around the conflicting interests of players.<\/p>\n

Paraded earlier this year as PNG Chiefs signing No.1 for 2028, Luai made another flying visit to Port Moresby on Sunday despite requiring scans for a lower leg injury suffered in the Tigers’ 24-10 loss to the Cowboys<\/a> on Saturday night that could potentially see him miss the Round 27 clash with the Panthers<\/a> – his final match as a Tiger.<\/p>\n

Instead of heading home to Sydney for treatment, Luai was appearing in his role as a Pepsi ambassador at the PNG Open golf tournament<\/a> at the Royal Port Moresby Golf club alongside Prime Minister James Marape.<\/p>\n

MORE:\u00a0Jacob Saifiti slapped with massive ban from NRL Match Review Committee<\/a><\/p>\n

With Luai still having one match as a Wests Tigers player in 2026, and then linking with the Eels for an entire NRL season before joining the Chiefs in 2028, it’s fair to say not everyone thinks the arrangement that allowed that visit to happen is a good one.<\/p>\n

One especially vocal critic on Monday morning was Fox League commentator Andrew Voss.<\/p>\n

Speaking on SEN radio Voss said he was ‘absolutely stunned’ before drawing attention to the fact Luai is still a contracted Wests Tigers player.<\/p>\n

“Jarome Luai is getting paid $24,000 this week as part of his contract money by the Tigers,” Voss said.<\/a><\/p>\n

“He is a leader\u2026 yet he is going off to Papua New Guinea to a golf day\u2026 are you not meant to do all you can to be fit for the next game?<\/p>\n

“What are Parramatta thinking? What arrangement does Parramatta have with Jarome Luai and all these commitments to PNG?”<\/p>\n

If recent events are anything to go by, it seems the Eels’ new five-eighth may be somewhat distracted in 2027.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Injured Luai makes surprise PNG golf visit: ‘What are Parramatta thinking?’ originally appeared on The Sporting News. Add…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":874687,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[566],"tags":[64,63,755,4582,158,444019,16390,9112,234580,85,13338,133829,4515],"class_list":["post-874686","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-golf","tag-jarome-luai","tag-nrl","tag-nrl-match-review-committee","tag-parramatta","tag-parramatta-eels","tag-png-chiefs","tag-sports","tag-tigers","tag-voss","tag-wests-tigers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/874686","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=874686"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/874686\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/874687"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=874686"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=874686"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=874686"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}