{"id":952053,"date":"2026-11-04T07:54:28","date_gmt":"2026-11-04T07:54:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/952053\/"},"modified":"2026-11-04T07:54:28","modified_gmt":"2026-11-04T07:54:28","slug":"nrl-news-2026-hudson-young-touches-down-in-port-moresby-for-png-chiefs-tour-liam-martin-in-talks-with-canberra-raiders","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/952053\/","title":{"rendered":"NRL news 2026: Hudson Young touches down in Port Moresby for PNG Chiefs tour; Liam Martin in talks with Canberra Raiders"},"content":{"rendered":"

Canberra<\/a> and NSW<\/a> back-rower Hudson Young<\/a> touched down in Port Moresby on Wednesday for a tour of the PNG Chiefs<\/a>\u2032 facilities.<\/p>\n

The 28-year-old\u2019s sneak peek into compound life comes as he considers whether to take up a tax-free $900,000-a-season deal with the NRL<\/a>\u2019s 19th club, which will enter the league in 2028.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Hudson Young touches down in Port Moresby.\u00a09News<\/p>\n

Young, whose 2026 season was ended by an Achilles rupture<\/a> in July, was greeted in Port Moresby by Chiefs head coach Willie Peters<\/a>, chief executive Lorna McPherson and general manager of football Michael Chammas.<\/p>\n

He was joined on the trip by his manager Sam Ayoub, the father of Chiefs recruitment boss Liam Ayoub.<\/p>\n

The Raiders last week pulled their offer for Young<\/a> \u2013 a record four-year, $4.4 million deal \u2013 having grown fed up with the representative star\u2019s failure to make a call on his future.<\/p>\n

It was the richest playing contract ever offered in Raiders history but it wasn\u2019t enough to make Young stay put.<\/p>\n

The boom edge forward is contracted to Canberra until the end of 2027.<\/p>\n

Former Panthers<\/a> and Blues hard man Mark Geyer urged Young to sign with the Chiefs.<\/p>\n

\u201cJust get it done,\u201d Geyer said on 2GB\u2019s The Continuous Call Team on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

\u201cLook, he doesn\u2019t want to be in the nation\u2019s capital \u2013 that\u2019s obvious, otherwise he would have re-signed. They (the Raiders) have offered him this mega deal, a million a year, and it\u2019s dragged on so long the Raiders ripped it off the table.\u201d<\/p>\n

At the same time that Young is eyeing a potential move to PNG, gun Penrith back-rower Liam Martin \u2013 who is NSW teammates with Young \u2013 is in talks with Canberra.<\/p>\n

\u201cHudson, just sign the deal, buddy,\u201d Geyer added.<\/p>\n

\u201cPut everyone out of their misery.<\/p>\n

\u201cThen your ex-club has a better chance of signing Liam Martin. If you love the Raiders but you don\u2019t want to be there, do the right thing by them and let them bring Liam Martin in.\u201d<\/p>\n

Speaking in September about the prospect of joining PNG, Young described it as a \u201conce-in-a-lifetime opportunity\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just want to make sure that I\u2019m comfortable with the decision I make, and that\u2019s the reason why I\u2019m going over there, just to suss it all out,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s one of those things \u2013 I just want to see it for myself first. There\u2019s been a lot of media around it and certain players going over there and saying certain things, so I just want to go over there and make the decision myself on what I feel.\u201d <\/p>\n

The Raiders appear to be open to Young leaving with a year to run on his contract.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s up to Hudson and his management to ask for that, but I\u2019d definitely look at it,\u201d Raiders coach Ricky Stuart<\/a> told The Canberra Times.<\/p>\n

The Chiefs have so far signed seven players: Jarome Luai<\/a>, Alex Johnston, Brian To\u2019o, Zac Lomax<\/a>, Matty Lees, Connor Watson and Joey Manu.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Canberra and NSW back-rower Hudson Young touched down in Port Moresby on Wednesday for a tour of the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":952054,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,761,762,158,85],"class_list":["post-952053","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\/952053","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=952053"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/952053\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/952054"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=952053"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=952053"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=952053"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}