Former Kangaroos back Dane Gagai has been allowed permission to change his international eligibility from Australia to New Zealand.<\/p>\n
Gagai, who plays in tomorrow’s NRL grand final for the Newcastle Knights against the Sydney Roosters, had applied to International Rugby League for the eligibility switch but it was initially turned down.<\/p>\n
However, his appeal to to the IRL appeals committee overturned that decision, leaving 35-year-old Gagai available for selection for the Kiwis for their first test against the Kangaroos in Sydney on 15 October.<\/p>\n
Gagai, who played for the Kangaroos on the wing, will play at centre for the Knights in the final. He has signed to play for the Brisbane Broncos in 2027.<\/p>\n
He qualifies for New Zealand through his mother Tania and has played for the M\u0101ori All Stars since 2019 because of his Ng\u0101ti Piki\u0101o heritage.<\/p>\n
He played for the Kangaroos when they won Rugby League World Cup title in 2017.<\/p>\n
Under IRL eligibility rules players who represent a Tier 1 nation – Australia, England and New Zealand – are unable to play for another Tier 1 nation and Gagai’s application was initially rejected on those grounds.<\/p>\n
However, the IRL recently permitted Kalyn Ponga to switch his international allegiances to New Zealand and AJ Brimson to play for England after both had represented Australia at the IRL World Cup Nines in 2019.<\/p>\n
Changes to State of Origin eligibility rules also enabled Briton Nikora, Casey McLean and Addin Fonua-Blake to play in this year’s series despite not being eligible for Australia as they have represented New Zealand.<\/p>\n
Gagai has played in 23 State of Origin matches for Queensland.<\/p>\n
The appeals committee accepted that he had not been afforded the same option as those other players.<\/p>\n
IRL chairman Troy Grant said there were “special circumstances” in Gagai’s case.<\/p>\n
Australian Rugby League Commission chairman Peter V’landys and Kangaroos coach Kevin Walters had supported Gagai’s application, he said.<\/p>\n
“Dane hasn’t played for Australia for eight years and we didn’t want him to be disadvantaged compared to other players with recent rule changes,” Grant said.<\/p>\n
“Dane wrote to us and Peter V’landys was very supportive. He felt there should be a bit of an amnesty period because we didn’t want one player disadvantaged over another, given that Dane wasn’t in the Kangaroos squad and it has been so long since he has played at international level. Kevin Walters was supportive too.<\/p>\n
“Dane didn’t have the same option as other players who can play State of Origin and represent their heritage.<\/p>\n
“It was felt that there were special circumstances in his case so Dane is now available for selection by New Zealand, and it is now up to them whether they pick him.”<\/p>\n
The appeals committee also approved an application for Kaiyah Atai to play for New Zealand after representing Cook Islands in World Cup qualifying match in 2024.<\/p>\n
Atai was born in New Zealand but was initially ruled ineligible to play for the Kiwi Ferns as the World Cup qualifiers are considered part of RLWC26.<\/p>\n
Cook Islands did not qualify for this year’s World Cup.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former Kangaroos back Dane Gagai has been allowed permission to change his international eligibility from Australia to New…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":619209,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[111,43,139,69],"class_list":["post-619208","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/619208","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=619208"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/619208\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/619209"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=619208"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=619208"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=619208"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}