{"id":936806,"date":"2026-10-22T10:52:23","date_gmt":"2026-10-22T10:52:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/936806\/"},"modified":"2026-10-22T10:52:23","modified_gmt":"2026-10-22T10:52:23","slug":"mark-nawaqanitawase-2026-wallabies-news-rugby-world-cup-decision-interview-on-australia-fiji-italy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/936806\/","title":{"rendered":"Mark Nawaqanitawase 2026 Wallabies news: Rugby World Cup decision; interview on Australia, Fiji, Italy"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mark Nawaqanitawase<\/a> has made it clear that Fiji and Italy are very real options as the Wallabies<\/a> sweat on his Rugby World Cup<\/a> decision.<\/p>\n

Given Nawaqanitawase has already played 11 Tests for Australia, and then represented the Kangaroos<\/a> in league, it had been widely and wrongly assumed that a Wallabies<\/a> return was a given once he signed in February to make his rugby return in Japan. <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Mark Nawaqanitawase speaks to media at Stade Roger Baudras.\u00a0Chris Hyde<\/p>\n

The 26-year-old would be a marketing dream for Rugby Australia at a home World Cup next year, but the freakish winger has now opened up about the broader family and cultural factors at play.<\/p>\n

Nawaqanitawase\u2019s father Sevuloni is from Fiji and his mother Fiona has Italian heritage.<\/p>\n

He told The Good, The Bad & The Rugby podcast that Australians would be \u201cshocked at how in time I am with both cultures\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve grown up in a household full of Fijians,\u201d Nawaqanitawase said during the extensive chat with ex-England international James Haskell and host Alex Payne.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe other side of it is my mother\u2019s fluent in Italian and my aunties and grandparents have grown up on the same street. Any special event, there\u2019s been Italian food around and the language being spoken about.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd growing up in a house full of Fijians – my mum\u2019s got a big heart \u2013 I\u2019ve grown up my whole life with not just my mum and stepdad and brother and sister, it\u2019s been us, plus another Fijian family \u2013 and it\u2019s been on rotation. They stay for two years and another one will come in.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nawaqanitawase visited Fiji every year growing up during school holidays.<\/p>\n

\u201cI grew up in the village running around playing touch, whether it was with a coconut or a bottle, playing volleyball or just swimming in the river,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m lucky to have some cool experiences with my Fijian side.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nawaqanitawase will reportedly earn $3 million over two years by playing for Robbie Deans\u2019 Saitama Wild Knights.<\/p>\n

He swapped jerseys with another code-hopping star, Semi Radradra, after Fiji\u2019s historic upset of the Wallabies at the 2023 World Cup in Saint-\u00c9tienne. <\/p>\n

\"Mark<\/p>\n

Mark Nawaqanitawase of the Wallabies is tackled during the Rugby Championship match against Argentina.\u00a0Getty<\/p>\n

Nawaqanitawase wants to settle into his new life in Japan over the next two months before deciding his international future next year.<\/p>\n

\u201cI will obviously have a few things to think of,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI want to make sure wherever I go, I\u2019m happy, and the people around me, my family, are happy too. There\u2019s a lot to think about. These decisions will have a massive impact on how your life goes\u2026<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not about the money. I get paid by my club and then if you play internationally, you might get a match fee, but it\u2019s (insignificant).\u201d<\/p>\n

Nawaqanitawase is fresh from the high of scoring two tries in an NRL grand final win with the Sydney Roosters.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s the biggest thing that\u2019s made me open to everything is I\u2019ve come from an experience at the Roosters where, I\u2019m telling you, the set-up from top to bottom, just the way they\u2019ve made me feel, and again the experience I had winning, I definitely do have to think about where am I going to go where I\u2019m going to get that feeling again,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople will never understand that, and that\u2019s the biggest part of making the decision… I still have more to prove. I don\u2019t know where that\u2019s going to be, but wherever I go, I feel like I have a lot to give the team. Whoever it\u2019s for, I want to go and win it (the 2027 World Cup). I don\u2019t know who it will be for, but time will tell.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Mark Nawaqanitawase says he hasn\u2019t made up his mind on who he wants to play for at the 2027 Rugby World Cup.\u00a0Getty Images<\/p>\n

Australia are ranked seventh in the world, with Fiji 10th and Italy 12th.<\/p>\n

Fiji, who have just hired Jake White as their new coach, have never reached a World Cup semi-final while Italy are yet to reach the quarter-finals.<\/p>\n

Nawaqanitawase added that it had been a \u201cmassive honour\u201d playing for the Wallabies in 2022-23 before switching to the NRL and he \u201cloved every moment of it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wallabies coach Les Kiss has said that his conversations with Nawaqanitawase had been positive, and he was happy to give him space to make his decision.<\/p>\n

Australia captain Harry Wilson recently indicated that he thought Nawaqanitawase\u2019s return to a gold jersey was a given.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think I have to convince him,\u201d Wilson said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI played Junior Wallabies with him, played Wallabies with him, and saw him last night supporting the Kangaroos. So, I think it\u2019s pretty obvious who he wants to play for.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Harry Wilson of the Wallabies warms up.\u00a0Getty Images<\/p>\n

Nawaqanitawase has ruled himself out of contention for Australia\u2019s Nations Championship Tests in the northern hemisphere next month.<\/p>\n

Wallabies great Matt Giteau, meanwhile, was not impressed with how Nawaqanitawase was handling the situation.<\/p>\n

\u201cI want the people that want to play for the Wallabies to play for the Wallabies,\u201d Giteau said on the Kick Offs and Kick Ons podcast.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you don\u2019t, then go somewhere else.\u201d<\/p>\n

Watch the Wallabies in action in November\u2019s Nations Championship.\u00a0Add the Stan Sport package<\/a>\u00a0to watch rugby live and on demand with no ad-breaks in play<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mark Nawaqanitawase has made it clear that Fiji and Italy are very real options as the Wallabies sweat…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":936807,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,760,85],"class_list":["post-936806","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\/936806","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=936806"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/936806\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/936807"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=936806"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=936806"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=936806"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}