![\"Frank](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/4LYLM9F_image_crop_136401.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\nFrank Pritchard played for New Zealand at the 2013 Rugby League World Cup before captaining Toa Samoa in 2017.
\nPhoto: PHOTOSPORT\n<\/p>\n
Frank Pritchard is the new Head Coach for Fetu Samoa, Samoa’s national women’s rugby league team.<\/p>\n
Rugby League Samoa said the former Kiwi and Toa Samoa representative replaces Jamie Soward, who resigned last month.<\/p>\n
The duo had previously worked together for the past three years, lifting Fetu Samoa from 24th to 4th position in the International Rugby League rankings.<\/p>\n
Pritchard played in the National Rugby League competition for Penrith Panthers from 2003 to 2010, before he joined the Canterbury Banktown Bulldogs for the 2011-2015 seasons.<\/p>\n
He joined the Super League in England in 2016 and helped Hull FC claim the Challenge Cup that year.<\/p>\n
A brief stint with the Paramatta Eels in 2017 also saw Pritchard bid farewell to his NRL career, before he took up coaching duties with Samoa Rugby League.<\/p>\n
He played 27 Test matches for the Kiwis, including appearing at the 2013 Rugby League World Cup, before switching to Toa Samoa for the 2017 Rugby League World Cup.<\/p>\n
Pritchard will now lead the Samoans in their 2026 Rugby League World Cup campaign.<\/p>\n
Rugby League Samoa said the World Cup campaign will be huge for Fetu Samoa “and we are all excited to see our women represented at the highest level”.<\/p>\n
Samoa are pooled with Australia, England and Wales in Pool A.<\/p>\n
They kick off their campaign against the Australian Jillaroos at Sydney’s CommBank Stadium on 16 October.<\/p>\n
Wales will be their next opponent on 21 October, before their final pool clash against England in Wollongong on 30 October.<\/p>\n
Pool B features New Zealand, France, Papua New Guinea and Fiji.<\/p>\n
The top two teams from each pool will progress to the semifinals.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, PNG is yet to confirm their new coach, to replace Tahnee Norris, who also resigned from the post in December.<\/p>\n
Former Kumuls captain and NRL player David Mead had told the media in PNG in early January he was interested in the position.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Frank Pritchard played for New Zealand at the 2013 Rugby League World Cup before captaining Toa Samoa in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":280946,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[48,47,111,43,139,69,49,46,44,45],"class_list":{"0":"post-280945","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-zealand","8":"tag-audio","9":"tag-current-affairs","10":"tag-new-zealand","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-newzealand","13":"tag-nz","14":"tag-podcasts","15":"tag-public-radio","16":"tag-radio-new-zealand","17":"tag-rnz"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/280945","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=280945"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/280945\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/280946"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=280945"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=280945"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=280945"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}