{"id":302698,"date":"2025-12-07T05:25:13","date_gmt":"2025-12-07T05:25:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/302698\/"},"modified":"2025-12-07T05:25:13","modified_gmt":"2025-12-07T05:25:13","slug":"i-came-to-the-right-club-york-knights-recruit-eager-to-be-part-of-maiden-super-league-campaign","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/302698\/","title":{"rendered":"“I came to the right club” – York Knights recruit eager to be part of maiden Super League campaign"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

York Knights recruit, John Sagaga, is ready to play a big role in the club\u2019s first-ever Super League season, after joining from Penrith Panthers.<\/p>\n

The prop forward joins fellow overseas recruits Jordan Lipp and Ryan Jackson<\/a> at the Knights, as they bring in a number of Australian youngsters who have unproven potential at the top level.<\/p>\n

Sagaga, whilst he never made a senior appearance for the Panthers, did feature in the club\u2019s two pre-season matches ahead of this season. He has also played 11 games for the club\u2019s NSW Cup side since 2023.<\/p>\n

He gave his first interview since moving over to the UK to BBC Radio York,<\/a> and has revealed just how excited he is to be part of the new era at the Knights.<\/p>\n

He said: \u201cI was very excited to sign for York Knights [after] seeing how the progressed over the last couple of seasons and where they are heading, so it was a no-brainer. I was really excited to sign.\u201d<\/p>\n

Asked how the move came about, he revealed: \u201cI think York reached out to my manager, and he got back to me and that\u2019s sort of how it started.<\/p>\n

\u201cI sort of just took it as it came. It was a good opportunity for myself to not only grow as a player, but as a person as well, living away from home.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think I came to the right club, seeing the way they\u2019ve progressed over the years and I\u2019m really excited for it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sagaga will be living with some of his Aussie teammates as he settles in to life in the UK. Whilst he doesn\u2019t know anyone at the club from his time in Australia, there are a few ex-teammates that he is looking forward to going up against next year.<\/p>\n

He said: \u201cAt York, I don\u2019t know anyone that I know from back home. I do have a couple of mates that I played with at Penrith, one that\u2019s signed at Catalans Dragons, Zac Lipowicz. I\u2019ve played a couple of years with him back home.\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite revealing he doesn\u2019t know too much about the UK game, he is extremely excited to be part of the club\u2019s maiden Super League squad, and after being in and around the facilities, knows that the switch to North Yorkshire is a good one for him.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m very excited for it [to play in Super League],\u201d he said. \u201cThe club\u2019s growing and where it\u2019s heading, I\u2019m very grateful and can\u2019t wait to be a part of it.<\/p>\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t really watch many Super League games when I was back home. I\u2019ve heard that the intensity\u2019s there. They do it tough over here, but like I said I\u2019m really excited to see how it feels and what it\u2019s like to be in Super League.\u201d<\/p>\n

Check out the latest episode of The Serious About Rugby League Show on our YouTube channel here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"York Knights recruit, John Sagaga, is ready to play a big role in the club\u2019s first-ever Super League…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":215634,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[5903,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-302698","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-rugby","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/302698","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=302698"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/302698\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/215634"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=302698"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=302698"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=302698"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}