{"id":196127,"date":"2025-12-22T09:19:08","date_gmt":"2025-12-22T09:19:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/196127\/"},"modified":"2025-12-22T09:19:08","modified_gmt":"2025-12-22T09:19:08","slug":"retired-new-zealand-international-joins-new-club-for-2026-nrl-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/196127\/","title":{"rendered":"Retired New Zealand international joins new club for 2026 &#8211; NRL News"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.zerotackle.com\/players\/elijah-taylor\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Elijah Taylor<\/a>, a former <a href=\"https:\/\/www.zerotackle.com\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">NRL<\/a> forward for three different teams, has decided to lace up the boots once again, signing with another club ahead of the upcoming 2026 season.<\/p>\n<p>After announcing his retirement in 2025, Taylor has decided to sign with local rugby league side Campbelltown City Kangaroos, who compete in the Wests Group Macarthur first-grade competition.<\/p>\n<p>An 11-time international for the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.zerotackle.com\/rugby-league\/international-teams\/new-zealand\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">New Zealand<\/a> Kiwis (2011-17), the 35-year-old will become the latest individual to don the Blue and Gold jersey following the likes of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.zerotackle.com\/players\/ava-seumanufagai\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Ava Seumanufagai<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.zerotackle.com\/players\/junior-moors\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Junior Moors<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.zerotackle.com\/players\/ray-cashmere\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Ray Cashmere<\/a>, Russ Aitken and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.zerotackle.com\/players\/shannon-gallant\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Shannon Gallant<\/a> in recent years.<\/p>\n<p>Hailing from Taranaki,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.zerotackle.com\/rugby-league\/international-teams\/new-zealand\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">New Zealand<\/a>, Taylor&#8217;s stint in the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.zerotackle.com\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">NRL<\/a> saw him play 186 matches for the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.zerotackle.com\/nrl\/teams\/new-zealand-warriors\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">New Zealand Warriors<\/a> (2011-13), <a href=\"https:\/\/www.zerotackle.com\/nrl\/teams\/penrith-panthers\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Penrith Panthers<\/a> (2014-16) and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.zerotackle.com\/nrl\/teams\/wests-tigers\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Wests Tigers<\/a> (2016-20), a team in which he co-captained and even won the club&#8217;s Player of the Year award.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Elijah will be living locally and is excited to give back to the rugby league community,&#8221; a statement from the club read.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;In recent years he has passionately shared guidance with the next generation through his FootyHacks Instagram account, offering young players opportunities to learn from his experiences.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;He is looking forward to driving standards within the first grade squad next season and will also assist with the development of our Under 18s as an Assistant Coach.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Coached by Clay Harding and Nathan Wilson, the Kangaroos have also signed former Under-21s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.zerotackle.com\/nswrl-competitions\/jersey-flegg-cup\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Jersey Flegg Cup<\/a> five-eighth Palu Tausala, who previously played for the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.zerotackle.com\/nrl\/teams\/south-sydney-rabbitohs\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">South Sydney Rabbitohs<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Campbelltown City Kangaroos 2026 Squad<\/p>\n<p>Anthony Leatham, Braydon Ferguson, Brendon Barlow, Connor Fletcher, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.zerotackle.com\/players\/elijah-taylor\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Elijah Taylor<\/a>, Jacob Williams, Jack Achurch, Jerry Coad, Josh Hines, Lorima Cosgrave, Mick Taute, Nathan Lynch, Palu Tausala, Perry Falute,\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Elijah Taylor, a former NRL forward for three different teams, has decided to lace up the boots once&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":196128,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[111,139,69,213],"class_list":{"0":"post-196127","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-new-zealand","9":"tag-newzealand","10":"tag-nz","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/196127","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=196127"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/196127\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/196128"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=196127"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=196127"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=196127"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}