{"id":914117,"date":"2026-10-03T01:44:11","date_gmt":"2026-10-03T01:44:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/914117\/"},"modified":"2026-10-03T01:44:11","modified_gmt":"2026-10-03T01:44:11","slug":"rugby-league-world-cup-kiwis-get-boost-as-australia-star-dane-gagai-switches-allegiance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/914117\/","title":{"rendered":"Rugby League World Cup: Kiwis get boost as Australia star Dane Gagai switches allegiance"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s reported that Gagai\u2019s eight-year non-selection has played a part in his clearance to change allegiance to the Kiwis. <\/p>\n

His switch gives Jones another option in the centres for this year\u2019s tournament, with Gagai being arguably the competition\u2019s form player in his position. <\/p>\n

In 25 games, he\u2019s scored six tries and created 12 more, to go with 123 tackle breaks and 378 tackles at a success rate of just under 80, to help his Newcastle Knights into Sunday\u2019s NRL Grand Final<\/a> against the Sydney Roosters.<\/p>\n

Gagai is also poised to join club and Queensland teammate Kalyn Ponga, who has also changed his allegiance<\/a> from Australia to New Zealand at test level. Although Ponga had never played a test for Australia, he did wear the green and gold in an international nines tournament in 2019. <\/p>\n

Interestingly, Gagai could make his debut against Australia, who open their World Cup campaign against the Kiwis at Sydney\u2019s Allianz Stadium on October 15. <\/p>\n

The Kiwis\u2019 World Cup squad will be named on Tuesday. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It\u2019s reported that Gagai\u2019s eight-year non-selection has played a part in his clearance to change allegiance to the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":914118,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[57626,10960,64,63,26457,98710,119024,3181,3933,460943,5587,448545,10870,58449,4443,15499,7992,2877,10668,99923,92534,760,85,370977,4031,27837,192457,19004,3605,1720,32388],"class_list":["post-914117","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-allegiance","tag-as","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-boost","tag-centre","tag-cleared","tag-coach","tag-cup","tag-dane","tag-from","tag-gagai","tag-get","tag-huge","tag-jones","tag-kiwis","tag-knights","tag-league","tag-newcastle","tag-received","tag-reportedly","tag-rugby","tag-sports","tag-stacey","tag-star","tag-switch","tag-switches","tag-this","tag-with","tag-world","tag-years"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/914117","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=914117"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/914117\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/914118"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=914117"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=914117"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=914117"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}