{"id":616807,"date":"2026-06-02T10:08:08","date_gmt":"2026-06-02T10:08:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/616807\/"},"modified":"2026-06-02T10:08:08","modified_gmt":"2026-06-02T10:08:08","slug":"st-helens-prop-matty-lees-to-join-nrl-side-png-chiefs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/616807\/","title":{"rendered":"St Helens prop Matty Lees to join NRL side PNG Chiefs"},"content":{"rendered":"

Matty Lees will leave St Helens at the end of next season to join new NRL franchise Papua New Guinea Chiefs.<\/p>\n

The 28-year-old England prop has told the club he will be linking up with the new outfit, to be coached by current Hull Kingston Rovers boss Willie Peters,<\/a> in the 2028 season.<\/p>\n

Lees has made nearly 200 appearances for Saints after joining them as a 16-year-old and making his first-team debut at 18.<\/p>\n

The Rochdale-born player is currently out for the rest of the 2026 season<\/a> after undergoing knee surgery, and Saints have already moved to fill the gap he leaves by bringing in former Canterbury Bulldogs man Daniel Suluka-Fifita<\/a>, who is due to arrive on Merseyside this week.<\/p>\n

Saints chairman Eamonn McManus said:, external<\/a> “He has won every honour with us and will go down as a legend of the club. <\/p>\n

“I’m sure that he will carry on in that vein when he recovers from injury and that he will be giving absolutely everything, as only he knows how to, in the 2027 season.<\/p>\n

“Matty has had an ambition to play in the NRL for some time, and we respect that, particularly after so many years of putting his body on the line for us. <\/p>\n

“He had an NRL break clause in his existing contract for 2028 and, therefore, in turn, he has shown respect to us by honouring his contractual obligations to the full.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Matty Lees will leave St Helens at the end of next season to join new NRL franchise Papua…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":616808,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[5903,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-616807","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\/616807","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=616807"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/616807\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/616808"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=616807"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=616807"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=616807"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}