{"id":610057,"date":"2026-09-24T07:52:12","date_gmt":"2026-09-24T07:52:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/610057\/"},"modified":"2026-09-24T07:52:12","modified_gmt":"2026-09-24T07:52:12","slug":"former-bulldog-set-for-nrl-return-with-warriors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/610057\/","title":{"rendered":"Former Bulldog set for NRL return with Warriors"},"content":{"rendered":"

The New Zealand Warriors<\/a> have handed an NRL<\/a> opportunity to former Canterbury Bulldogs<\/a> player Bailey Biondi-Odo<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Biondi-Odo last played NRL<\/a> in 2022 with the Bulldogs, and has been with the Townsville Blackhawks in the QLD Cup<\/a> ever since.<\/p>\n

2027 will see him cross the Tasman though, with the half and hooker joining the Warriors for the year ahead on a development deal which could give him a chance to progress through the club’s playing group and push for an NRL<\/a> return.<\/p>\n

Related Coverage<\/p>\n

The move from the Warriors makes plenty of logical sense as they gear up for the departure of both Jett Cleary<\/a> to the Penrith Panthers<\/a> and Luke Hanson<\/a> to the Gold Coast Titans<\/a> at the end of this year, while Luke Metcalf<\/a> will also join the St George Illawarra Dragons<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Warriors may have had too many halves in their squad next year, but Biondi-Odo is their first spine recruit even if on a development deal, with the other signatures to date being Grant Anderson<\/a>, Sam McIntyre<\/a> and Will Warbrick<\/a> from the Broncos, Cowboys and Storm respectively.<\/p>\n

Biondi-Odo showed plenty of promise during his 17 NRL<\/a> games with the Bulldogs, but was ultimately cut after major injury issues, including an ACL that wiped out his 2023 campaign.<\/p>\n

The Mount Isa-born utility was set to return to the Bulldogs in 2024, but that ultimately didn’t happen.<\/p>\n

Instead, he joined the Blackhawks in Townsville, where he has now scored 28 tries in 43 games, assisted another 29, forced 14 dropouts and averaged 73 running metres per game.<\/p>\n

This year was particularly impressive, with 13 tries in 17 games along with 19 try assists, predominantly playing at halfback.<\/p>\n

\u201cBailey showed a lot of promise when he broke into the NRL<\/a> with the Bulldogs and has just come out of a terrific season with Townsville,\u201d Warriors general manager of pathways and recruitment Andrew McFadden<\/a> said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe’re excited to bring him into our system and give him this opportunity. He’ll boost our resources in the halves and add to the competition for spots.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The New Zealand Warriors have handed an NRL opportunity to former Canterbury Bulldogs player Bailey Biondi-Odo. Biondi-Odo last…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":610058,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[111,139,69,213],"class_list":["post-610057","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\/610057","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=610057"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/610057\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/610058"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=610057"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=610057"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=610057"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}