{"id":632361,"date":"2026-10-16T11:26:10","date_gmt":"2026-10-16T11:26:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/632361\/"},"modified":"2026-10-16T11:26:10","modified_gmt":"2026-10-16T11:26:10","slug":"rugby-league-world-cup-2026-kalyn-ponga-to-have-surgery-on-broken-forearm","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/632361\/","title":{"rendered":"Rugby League World Cup 2026: Kalyn Ponga to have surgery on broken forearm"},"content":{"rendered":"

New Zealand have refused to rule Kalyn Ponga out of the rest of the Rugby League World Cup despite him needing surgery on a broken forearm.<\/p>\n

The full-back played on for around 20 minutes with the injury, sustained during Thursday’s epic tournament opener against co-hosts Australia, which the Kiwis lost 24-22.<\/p>\n

Ponga stayed on the pitch – and scored the second of his two tries – after breaking his arm in a tackle with Kangaroos stand-off Cameron Munster, before finally coming off in the 70th minute.<\/p>\n

He will remain with the squad, even though he has only an outside chance of being fit for the final in Brisbane on 15 November, should New Zealand get there.<\/p>\n

New Zealand are taking hope from the example of Blayke Brailey,, external<\/a> the Australia hooker who returned to action just 21 days after breaking his forearm while playing for his NRL club side Cronulla Sharks in May.<\/p>\n

“We wish Kalyn all the best with his surgery today,” New Zealand team doctor Greg Macleod said on Friday before Ponga’s operation.<\/p>\n

“We’ll see how that goes but for now he will remain in camp.”<\/p>\n

The loss of Ponga, who scored a try in a superb display for Newcastle Knights when they lost 19-18 to Sydney Roosters in the NRL Grand Final on 4 October, is a significant blow to New Zealand.<\/p>\n

Gold Coast Titans full-back Keano Kini is set to step in for the Kiwis’ remaining two Pool A matches, against the Cook Islands in Christchurch on 25 October and Fiji in Gold Coast on 31 October.<\/p>\n

Kini said: “We all know the player Kalyn Ponga is.<\/p>\n

“If that does rest on me, I’ll just play my own footy. I know what sort of footy I can play so I back myself all day.<\/p>\n

“That stuff doesn’t faze me.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"New Zealand have refused to rule Kalyn Ponga out of the rest of the Rugby League World Cup…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":632362,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-632361","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/632361","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=632361"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/632361\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/632362"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=632361"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=632361"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=632361"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}