{"id":418450,"date":"2026-05-08T20:22:15","date_gmt":"2026-05-08T20:22:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/418450\/"},"modified":"2026-05-08T20:22:15","modified_gmt":"2026-05-08T20:22:15","slug":"gould-backs-knights-young-gun-as-blues-bolter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/418450\/","title":{"rendered":"Gould backs Knights young gun as Blues bolter"},"content":{"rendered":"

Fletcher Sharpe’s rapid rise has now thrust him into the State of Origin<\/a> conversation, with rugby league heavyweight Gus Gould declaring the Newcastle young gun should be in contention for selection.<\/p>\n

The 22-year-old Newcastle Knights<\/a> star has emerged as one of the competition’s most exciting utility weapons, capable of playing across the entire backline while also proving himself as an elite fullback and five-eighth.<\/p>\n

Despite only making his NRL<\/a> debut last season, Sharpe has quickly become a key figure in Newcastle’s side and is now being floated as a potential Blues<\/a> bolter ahead of this year’s Origin series.<\/p>\n

During \u2018Ask Gus’ on Wide World of Sports, a listener asked Gould whether Sharpe was in the frame for State of Origin<\/a> selection.<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah, he’s got to be in the mix, particularly if they are gonna have six on the bench,\u201d Gould said.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe covers a whole swag of positions on the bench.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe’s a good player, really good player.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gould then revealed he had identified Sharpe’s talent years before his NRL<\/a> debut while watching junior representative football.<\/p>\n

\u201cI remember watching him years ago when he was playing Harold Matts, which was U16S at the time, and I was sitting with our recruitment manager, Peter Sharp<\/a>. We were sitting there and watching this young fullback who looked like Papenhuyzen,\u201d Gould recalled.<\/p>\n

\u201cI said (to Peter Sharp<\/a>), ‘Are you related to this kid?’ He said, ‘I don’t know’. I said, ‘Can you go and find out?'” he laughed.<\/p>\n

Sharpe has played just 33 NRL<\/a> games but has already crossed for 24 tries in first grade.<\/p>\n

Across seven appearances this season, he has scored two tries, produced four try assists, made 94 tackles and averages 85 running metres per game.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Fletcher Sharpe’s rapid rise has now thrust him into the State of Origin conversation, with rugby league heavyweight…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":418451,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[111,139,69,213],"class_list":["post-418450","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\/418450","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=418450"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/418450\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/418451"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=418450"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=418450"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=418450"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}