{"id":784130,"date":"2026-09-27T09:38:11","date_gmt":"2026-09-27T09:38:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/784130\/"},"modified":"2026-09-27T09:38:11","modified_gmt":"2026-09-27T09:38:11","slug":"leigh-leopards-sign-tevita-pangai-junior-for-start-of-2027-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/784130\/","title":{"rendered":"Leigh Leopards sign Tevita Pangai Junior for start of 2027 season"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Leigh Leopards have signed prop Tevita Pangai Junior on a &#8220;multi-year&#8221; contract from the start of the 2027 season.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The 30-year-old joined Hull KR in May on a deal until the end of the 2026 campaign, having previously played for Catalans Dragons and for several clubs in Australia&#8217;s NRL.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">However, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/sport\/rugby-league\/articles\/cvgl7vny823o\" class=\"ssrcss-18834jl-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">two lengthy suspensions<\/a> limited his appearances for Rovers, whose Super League title defence ended in the first round of the play-offs.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Head coach Adrian Lam <a href=\"https:\/\/leighleopards.co.uk\/tevita-pangai-junior-is-a-leopard\/\" class=\"ssrcss-18834jl-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">told the club website:, external<\/a> &#8220;Every year our aim is to improve the squad, and a signing like this is definitely a huge step in the right direction.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;Tevita has a wealth of experience and has played in some big games, including Test matches and State of Origin for New South Wales only three years ago.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Lam added: &#8220;This signing is a big statement that shows rival clubs we are moving forwards.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Leigh Leopards have signed prop Tevita Pangai Junior on a &#8220;multi-year&#8221; contract from the start of the 2027&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":784131,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[5903,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-784130","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\/784130","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=784130"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/784130\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/784131"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=784130"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=784130"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=784130"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}