{"id":964831,"date":"2026-11-15T02:06:19","date_gmt":"2026-11-15T02:06:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/964831\/"},"modified":"2026-11-15T02:06:19","modified_gmt":"2026-11-15T02:06:19","slug":"australian-jillaroos-rugby-league-world-cup-sariah-paki-isabelle-kelly-tamika-upton-nrlw-season-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/964831\/","title":{"rendered":"Australian Jillaroos, Rugby League World Cup, Sariah Paki, Isabelle Kelly, Tamika Upton, NRLW season 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"

Cross-code gun Sariah Paki is on the verge of adding a Rugby League World Cup victory to her bulging trophy cabinet.<\/p>\n

After savouring a Sevens World Cup triumph in in 2022 as well as winning Commonwealth Games gold, a World Series and representing Australia at the Olympics, Paki joined the Roosters this season looking for a new challenge and to pursue a family connection.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s been a long journey, but I’ve loved every step of it, and hopefully to win a World Cup would definitely top my year,\u201d the 25-year-old said.<\/p>\n

\u201c(Why I made the switch was) I wanted to try something new, I had a potential chance to play with my sister coming over to the Roosters, so as soon as I heard that she was playing, I wanted to make that step, no regrets, it was really good.\u201d<\/p>\n


\n
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\n \"Sariah
\n
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\n Sariah Paki at Jillaroos captain’s run.
\n \u00a9Scott Davis \/ NRL Images
\n
\n <\/p>\n

Paki is one of seven premiership-winning Roosters facing the Kiwi Ferns in the decider, alongside milestone women halfback Tarryn Aiken (15 Tests) and skipper Isabelle Kelly (25 Tests).<\/p>\n

The Jillaroos donned special shirts during captain\u2019s run to mark the milestone, with Kelly becoming the second player to notch 25 Tests in this campaign behind Kezie Apps.<\/p>\n

Taking over the Australian captaincy this year, Paki was full of praise for the Kelly who was looking to complete an undefeated season.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe’s been a great captain, she was my captain in Roosters, and, honestly, she makes you feel welcome at home and she made me feel (able) to play freely,<\/p>\n


\n
\n
\n \"Sariah
\n
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\n Sariah Paki and Isabelle Kelly at the Roosters.
\n \u00a9Chloe Davis \/ NRL Images
\n
\n <\/p>\n

\u201cDefinitely ups to my captain Izzy.<\/p>\n

\u201cI’m so excited to have her as captain here as well… she definitely gets the job done as a captain, she leads well on and off the field.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe’s an amazing person, Izzy.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe hates things being about her, so she’s a very selfless person, but we definitely love to show our appreciation of each team player making their milestones.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Jillaroos’ hard-fought win over Fiji in the semi-final proved the perfect hit-out for the decider against traditional rivals New Zealand, who have also gone through the tournament unbeaten.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt’s going to be a great match-up, we love going head-to-head with the Kiwis, we’ve done it for a number of years now and there’s a lot of rich history within that,\u201d Kelly said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt’s exciting…<\/p>\n

\u201cThey’ve got a lot of strike across the park and their outside backs and then their middles that lead them really well down the field, so, it’s going to be tough.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think that’s exactly what you want for some finals footy.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Cross-code gun Sariah Paki is on the verge of adding a Rugby League World Cup victory to her…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":964832,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,761,762,158,85],"class_list":["post-964831","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\/964831","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=964831"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/964831\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/964832"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=964831"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=964831"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=964831"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}