{"id":648337,"date":"2026-11-02T02:00:12","date_gmt":"2026-11-02T02:00:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/648337\/"},"modified":"2026-11-02T02:00:12","modified_gmt":"2026-11-02T02:00:12","slug":"unlikely-winner-emerges-from-luckless-samoan-blow","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/648337\/","title":{"rendered":"Unlikely winner emerges from luckless Samoan blow"},"content":{"rendered":"

Chanel Harris-Tavita’s luckless World Cup run looks set to play into the hands of Ronald Volkman, who looms as the obvious candidate to fill Samoa’s playmaking void for their semi-final meeting with Australia.<\/p>\n

Harris-Tavita was knocked out cold in the last World Cup final four years ago and is now long-odds to play again for Samoa this campaign.<\/p>\n

The Warriors’ No.6 strained his hamstring while taking a shot at goal in Sunday’s 20-18 group stage loss to Tonga.<\/p>\n

Parramatta half Volkman made an instant impact, scoring a try after replacing Harris-Tavita from the bench, and he will step in against the Kangaroos.<\/p>\n

Volkman’s rise to a likely Samoan starting jersey caps a terrific season for the 24-year-old after he was dumped by St George Illawarra in 2024 with concerns over a long-term shoulder issue.<\/p>\n

Samoa face Australia on Sunday at Sydney’s Allianz Stadium after their narrow loss to the Tongans<\/a> dumped England out of the tournament on points differential.<\/p>\n

\"Parramatta<\/p>\n

Parramatta player Ronald Volkman (left) with Stephen Crichton. (Source: Getty)<\/p>\n

“Ronald’s done a great job, he did a fantastic job last week for us in the win over Papua New Guinea,” Samoa coach Ben Gardiner said.<\/p>\n

“He came on at the back end of the game, in a slightly different role for a different reason and he did a really good job when he came on.<\/p>\n

“I thought he brought great energy, I thought his speed in the line really put pressure on the Tongan team.<\/p>\n

“We’ve got trust in every player in our team, so it doesn’t matter who goes on.<\/p>\n

“The guys that are in our squad, we’ve got complete trust in them.”<\/p>\n

The 24-year-old Volkman is likely to be the target of heavy traffic from the Kangaroos’ edge forwards as the two sides renew a rivalry that has simmered since the World Cup final four years ago.<\/p>\n

Samoa have yet to beat Australia in a Test across fives meetings and lost 38-12 in their last international three years ago.<\/p>\n

“Their form’s been very strong, very strong and they’ve got fantastic players,” Gardiner said.<\/p>\n

“They’ve got players that have played a lot of games for the Kangaroos and are in a really good position at the moment.<\/p>\n

“They’ve won three footy matches on the trot, and they’re going to be a really hard side to beat next week.<\/p>\n

“If we hold on to the ball and we complete better than 66 per cent that’ll give us a good opportunity to pick up on some of those things we need to work on.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Chanel Harris-Tavita’s luckless World Cup run looks set to play into the hands of Ronald Volkman, who looms…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":648338,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[85,111,139,69,6430,213,3006],"class_list":["post-648337","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-australia","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-pacific-islands","tag-sports","tag-warriors"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/648337","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=648337"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/648337\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/648338"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=648337"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=648337"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=648337"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}