{"id":202145,"date":"2025-12-26T03:27:06","date_gmt":"2025-12-26T03:27:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/202145\/"},"modified":"2025-12-26T03:27:06","modified_gmt":"2025-12-26T03:27:06","slug":"i-wanted-to-test-myself-new-warriors-signing-explains-decision-behind-nrl-move-nrl-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/202145\/","title":{"rendered":"“I wanted to test myself”: New Warriors signing explains decision behind NRL move – NRL News"},"content":{"rendered":"

One of four new signings made by the New Zealand Warriors<\/a> ahead of the 2026 season, forward Morgan Gannon<\/a> has opened up on his decision to make the switch from the Super League<\/a> to the NRL<\/a> competition.<\/p>\n

A rising star in England<\/a>, Gannon became the latest Super League<\/a> forward to make the move to the NRL<\/a>, following in the footsteps of James Graham<\/a>, Sam Burgess<\/a>, Morgan Smithies<\/a>, Kai Pearce-Paul<\/a> and Matty Nicholson<\/a> after signing a three-year deal with the Warriors in April.<\/p>\n

Currently in his first pre-season, the 22-year-old admitted that one of the main reasons for his move was to test himself and get out of his comfort zone in another country and competition.<\/p>\n

Able to play at lock or in the back row, Gannon arrives from the Leeds Rhinos<\/a>, where he played under Sam Burgess<\/a>.<\/p>\n

“It was a decision of do I stay in my comfort zone or do I take a shot in the dark and test myself,” Gannon said on the club’s\u00a0YouTube Channel.<\/a><\/p>\n

“I think, ultimately, that was what I wanted to do and I’m not regretting it.<\/p>\n

“I’m a second rower, I like to pride myself on defence. Defensively, that comes first. I think I’m a hard worker. There’s a saying, there’s tough, then there’s English tough, so I like to think I’m part of that.<\/p>\n

“I just want to be a person that teammates want to play with, and my teammates respect and always want them by their side.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"One of four new signings made by the New Zealand Warriors ahead of the 2026 season, forward Morgan…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":202146,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[111,139,69,213],"class_list":{"0":"post-202145","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\/202145","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=202145"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/202145\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/202146"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=202145"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=202145"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=202145"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}