{"id":633690,"date":"2026-06-11T20:25:17","date_gmt":"2026-06-11T20:25:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/633690\/"},"modified":"2026-06-11T20:25:17","modified_gmt":"2026-06-11T20:25:17","slug":"leigh-leopards-boss-warns-of-nrl-approach-for-edwin-ipape-despite-latest-png-chiefs-comments","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/633690\/","title":{"rendered":"Leigh Leopards boss warns of NRL approach for Edwin Ipape despite latest PNG Chiefs comments"},"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

Leigh Leopards head coach Adrian Lam has warned that despite the Papua New Guinea Chiefs publicly ruling themselves out of signing Edwin Ipape, there could still be interest to come from the NRL club.<\/p>\n

Ipape, an icon back home in PNG, is contracted until the end of the 2031 season after signing a six-year deal last season that ensured he was the longest-contracted player in the competition.<\/p>\n

Because of that lengthy contract, the Chiefs\u2019 managing director, Michael Chammas, admitted that the incoming NRL club wouldn\u2019t be pursuing Ipape<\/a> given both the length of the contract and the fact that, in his understanding, there was no NRL get-out clause.<\/p>\n

Asked about those comments today at his pre-match presser, Adrian Lam welcomed the news but suggested that attention will not go away for the star hooker.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a little bit of foresight,\u201d Lam said in reference to the fact Ipape\u2019s contract reportedly has no NRL clause, seemingly confirming that fact, however, he added.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think I\u2019ve mentioned in the past that I don\u2019t think that one is over just yet so we\u2019ll wait and see.\u201d<\/p>\n

Asked to elaborate, Lam was coy as he replied: \u201cI\u2019ll let you work that out, I\u2019m not going to comment too much on that but he\u2019s a big personality in the country.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s massive for us, it seems like he\u2019s contracted here until he\u2019s 45-years-old, I hope that\u2019s the case that he will be anyway but I just think that, we\u2019ll wait and see what happens.\u201d<\/p>\n

Brad Arthur commits to Leeds Rhinos, Hull KR lose back-to-back and Captain\u2019s Challenge rule debated \u2013 Click here to listen to this week\u2019s episode of the Serious About Rugby League Show<\/a><\/p>\n

What was said about Leigh Leopards\u2019 star man?<\/p>\n

The comments from Michael Chammas came early in June during the Australian\u2019s visit to England, in which he spoke with incoming PNG Chiefs head coach Willie Peters and also spoke to a number of the Papua New Guinean internationals at London Broncos.<\/p>\n

Speaking to NRL.com, Chammas said: \u201cEveryone keeps asking us about Edwin Ipape.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe reality is that Edwin Ipape signed a six-year deal to stay at Leigh and as far as has been reported, there is no NRL get-out clause for him, so we\u2019ve got to respect his position there.\u201d<\/p>\n

Chammas had also commented on Adrian Lam\u2019s son and Leigh\u2019s playmaker Lachlan Lam, who is contracted until the end of the 2027 season therefore could be available for the Chiefs to sign.<\/p>\n

On that, Chammas said: \u201cJust like the NRL, we know the rules we\u2019re playing by and if things pop up, we\u2019ll deal with them.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut at the moment there are some rules around certain players that limit what we can do.\u201d<\/p>\n

The rules in reference are that players cannot be spoken to until they enter the final year of their contract, with November 1st the key date for that.<\/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":"Leigh Leopards head coach Adrian Lam has warned that despite the Papua New Guinea Chiefs publicly ruling themselves…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":633691,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[5903,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-633690","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\/633690","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=633690"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/633690\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/633691"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=633690"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=633690"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=633690"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}