{"id":364764,"date":"2026-04-05T10:43:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-05T10:43:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/364764\/"},"modified":"2026-04-05T10:43:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-05T10:43:08","slug":"penrith-duo-weighing-up-surprise-png-move","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/364764\/","title":{"rendered":"Penrith duo weighing up surprise PNG move"},"content":{"rendered":"

Penrith Panthers<\/a> duo Mitch Kenny<\/a> and Liam Martin<\/a> are understood to be both weighing up their futures away from the club.<\/p>\n

The foot of the mountains based club have regularly shed players over the years without it impacting their success. Four straight premiership was followed by a trip to the preliminary finals last year, with the salary cap biting hard during their time at the top.<\/p>\n

But after Nathan Cleary<\/a> recently admitted he was weighing up testing the open market from November 1, it now appears both Mitch Kenny<\/a> and Liam Martin<\/a> could do the same with a clear home in mind.<\/p>\n

The duo – who are two of the keys to Penrith’s system at dummy half and on the edge respectively, are understood to be both weighing up a shift to Papua New Guinea<\/a> in 2028 when the Chiefs join the competition, per a Sydney Morning Herald report.<\/p>\n

No players have expressed publically that they are considering the move north yet, and player recruitment is widely viewed as the likely biggest challenge for the Chiefs when they enter the competition.<\/p>\n

Kenny and Martin making the move would add rapid legitimacy to the club who will be coached by Willie Peters<\/a>. Kenny is seen as a future Penrith club captain, while Martin is an Origin and Australian level player.<\/p>\n

Kenny could well be in contention to captain the new franchise if he moves north, with his abilities at dummy half combined with his tenacious defence leaving him in good stead with teammates.<\/p>\n

It’s understood the Roosters could also show interest in Liam Martin<\/a>, with that club needing to replace Angus Crichton<\/a> as he moves to rugby union at the end of this year – although that still leaves a 12-month gap.<\/p>\n

Alongside Kenny, Martin and Cleary, a host of Penrith players are off-contract with regular starters Blaize Talagi<\/a>, Brian To’i, Moses Leota<\/a>, Paul Alamoti<\/a> and Isaiah Papali’i<\/a> all able to negotiate with rivals from November 1 should they chose.<\/p>\n

Penrith have already lost Liam Henry<\/a> and Scott Sorensen<\/a> to the Perth Bears<\/a> from the end of 2026.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Penrith Panthers duo Mitch Kenny and Liam Martin are understood to be both weighing up their futures away…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":364765,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[111,139,69,213],"class_list":["post-364764","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/364764","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=364764"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/364764\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/364765"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=364764"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=364764"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=364764"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}