{"id":919271,"date":"2026-10-07T10:06:27","date_gmt":"2026-10-07T10:06:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/919271\/"},"modified":"2026-10-07T10:06:27","modified_gmt":"2026-10-07T10:06:27","slug":"nrl-news-2026-terrell-may-explains-samoa-snub-at-rugby-league-world-cup-wests-tigers-contract-and-brother-taylan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/919271\/","title":{"rendered":"NRL news 2026, Terrell May explains Samoa snub at Rugby League World Cup, Wests Tigers contract and brother Taylan"},"content":{"rendered":"

Terrell May says he decided to withdraw from World Cup<\/a> selection in order to repay the Wests Tigers<\/a> for giving him and his brother a big contract this year.<\/p>\n

The polarising prop was a notable omission from the Samoa squad on Tuesday<\/a>, and coach Ben Gardiner revealed May made himself unavailable.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Terrell and Taylan May on their podcast.\u00a0YouTube<\/p>\n

He would have been a near-certainty for selection after playing 23 NRL<\/a> games this year, averaging 149 run metres per game, registering 78 tackle breaks and 52 offloads.<\/p>\n

But by his own admission his form was down on 2025, when he won the club\u2019s best and fairest medal in his first season with the Tigers.<\/p>\n

Speaking on his podcast alongside brother Taylan and former NRL player Josh Mansour, May explained why he chose not to play the World Cup.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a hard one to say this because I do owe Samoa something as well,\u201d the 27-year-old said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s my culture. But I had to be a bit selfish this time.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a long, stressful thing. It wasn\u2019t just overnight (that a decision was made).<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter (my Tigers) season review I reflected on the year I had. It wasn\u2019t the year I wanted to have.<\/p>\n

\u201c(For) the Tigers fans, the club, and just myself, I know I can do a lot better.<\/p>\n

\u201cLast year my pre-season was not up to standard, I was probably not even 50 per cent of what I could have (given).<\/p>\n

\u201cSigning a long contract with the Tigers, I feel like I owe them.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf I would have played in a World Cup it would have affected my pre-season again.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat was the reason. It was obviously hard telling my in-laws and telling my parents.\u201d<\/p>\n

Terrell and Taylan May signed fresh Tigers contracts in May which tie them to the club until the end of 2030.<\/p>\n

The Tigers endured a tumultuous year in which marquee signing Jarome Luai<\/a> quit the club, his halves partner Adam Doueihi walked out on the team and refused to play<\/a>, and they missed NRL finals for a 15th straight year despite leading the competition early in the season.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Terrell May says he decided to withdraw from World Cup selection in order to repay the Wests Tigers…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":919272,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,761,762,158,85],"class_list":["post-919271","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\/919271","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=919271"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/919271\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/919272"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=919271"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=919271"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=919271"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}