{"id":59411,"date":"2025-08-11T15:02:11","date_gmt":"2025-08-11T15:02:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/59411\/"},"modified":"2025-08-11T15:02:11","modified_gmt":"2025-08-11T15:02:11","slug":"nrl-star-josh-papalii-rules-out-super-league-move-for-one-key-reason","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/59411\/","title":{"rendered":"NRL star Josh Papali’i rules out Super League move for one key reason"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"NRL\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

Josh Papali\u2019i has ruled out the possibility of a move to Super League next season with the NRL man harbouring ambitions of playing at next year\u2019s World Cup.<\/p>\n

Papali\u2019i has been strongly linked with a move to St Helens over the last couple of months, with the Saints being keen to add the Canberra Raiders man to their ranks for 2026. The signing of the forward, who has represented both Australia and Samoa internationally, would have been some statement of intent from St Helens given the way he has been performing in the NRL this season.<\/p>\n

The 33-year-old has made 20 appearances for Canberra so far this season, scoring three tries along the way and his displays saw him called up into the Queensland State of Origin side for the first time since 2022 last month.<\/p>\n

As such, Papali\u2019i has high hopes of playing in the World Cup in a little over a year\u2019s time and he believes a move to England would all but kill that dream.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of my goals is to play in the World Cup next year. So it\u2019d be hard to do it from England,\u201d Papali\u2019i said in an interview with the Canberra Times.<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think I\u2019m good enough to be in the Aussie squad, to be honest.<\/p>\n

\u201cSamoa would be nice, but if not, then it might have to be for the Cookies (Cook Islands).\u201d<\/p>\n

On the links to Super League, he added: \u201cI honestly don\u2019t know where that popped up from. People were just linking me up to England and other clubs.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd I was like, \u2018What\u2019s going on?\u2019 But no, definitely not. I\u2019m just playing good footy at the moment, just enjoying it.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think [England] was an option back in the day, but just too hard to be honest.\u201d<\/p>\n

NRL man Josh Papali\u2019i outlines contract hope<\/p>\n

Papali\u2019i has now made 325 appearances for the Green Machine over the course of his career after spending 15 seasons in the Raiders first-teams. And, he is keen to wrap up his future by penning a new deal with Canberra.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s probably a good few years until I\u2019m holding on too long,\u201d he said, per AAP.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m one to let my footy do the talking and if I\u2019m not performing, I wouldn\u2019t want to be hanging around.<\/p>\n

\u201cHopefully we get (the deal) done soon and put it all to bed and focus on the finals.\u201d<\/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":"Josh Papali\u2019i has ruled out the possibility of a move to Super League next season with the NRL…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":59412,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[5903,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-59411","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-rugby","8":"tag-rugby","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59411","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=59411"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59411\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/59412"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=59411"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=59411"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=59411"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}