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Olympic gold medallist Evania Isa’ako’s transition from star fullback to strike second rower has been lauded by fans after the Samoa international was voted in the NRLW World Cup Team of the Year.<\/p>\n
Isa’ako, who helped Fetu Samoa qualify for Rugby League World Cup 2026, was one of five Titans players chosen in the RLWC26 Team of the Year.\u00a0<\/p>\n
She is also one of three Samoa players in the RLWC26 Team of the Year, along with Titans team-mates and fellow forwards Sienna Lofipo and Laihka Clarke.<\/p>\n
The 31-year-old has found a surprise home in the second row this year after establishing herself as one of the best fullbacks in the NRLW following her switch from rugby sevens in 2021.<\/p>\n
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It’s a big change from having last played in the No.1 jersey in 2024 before welcoming daughter Letti into the world last year and preparing mentally and physically to return this season.<\/p>\n
A member of the Australian team that won gold at the 2016 Rio Olympic Games, Isa’ako represented her Samoan heritage during the World Cup qualifying tournament in 2024 during which the Fetu beat Tonga and Fiji.<\/p>\n
She is set to again be one of the stars for the Fetu, who beat Tonga and Fiji to win the Pacific berth at RLWC26, albeit in a different position.<\/p>\n
Lofipo and Clarke are also set to line up for Fetu Samoa, who meet the Jillaroos in their opening match on October 16 at CommBank Stadium as part of a double-header with Toa Samoa and France.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Samoa trio were joined in the RLWC26 Team of the Year by Titans team-mates Jaime Chapman, who has moved from the wing to centre, and rugby sevens superstar Teagan Levi.<\/p>\n
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Jaime Chapman gets a first-half hat-trick<\/p>\n
Both are believed to have been named in the Jillaroos extended squad but it is understood that Rugby Australia are planning to block Levi from playing in the World Cup.<\/p>\n
There are five Roosters players in the NRLW World Cup Team of the Year –\u00a0Isabelle Kelly, Tamika Upton, Olivia Kernick, Tarryn Aiken and Millie Elliott.<\/p>\n
Broncos fullback Tamika Upton and winger Julia Robinson – the 202 IRL Golden Boot winner – are others, along with the Wests Tigers second rower Shaylee Bent.<\/p>\n
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Pure class: Tamika Upton gets a double<\/p>\n
View voting for the NRLW World Cup Team of the Year<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Olympic gold medallist Evania Isa’ako’s transition from star fullback to strike second rower has been lauded by fans…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":900926,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,760,85],"class_list":["post-900925","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\/900925","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=900925"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/900925\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/900926"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=900925"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=900925"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=900925"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}