Australian National Rugby League Grand Final<\/p>\n
Sydney Roosters (6) 19<\/p>\n
Tries: Nawaqanitawase 2, Smith Goals: Walker 3 Drop goal: Cherry-Evans<\/p>\n
Newcastle Knights (12) 18<\/p>\n
Tries: Manuleleua, Ponga, Marzhew Goals: Smith 3<\/p>\n
Dual-code international winger Mark Nawaqanitawase scored two tries to help Sydney Roosters end the Newcastle Knights’ fairytale in the National Rugby League Premiership Grand Final.<\/p>\n
Nawaqanitawase, who is stepping away from rugby league and could represent Australia at the rugby union World Cup next year, crossed once in each half to help prevent a big upset in front of a crowd of 80,814 at Stadium Australia.<\/p>\n
Newcastle were looking to win a first title since 2001 and become the first club since 1934 to win the Premiership after finishing bottom in the previous season.<\/p>\n
A late try from the Knights’ Greg Marzhew made it a one-point game, but the Roosters held on to clinch a 16th title and first since 2019 in what was Nawaqanitawase’s last game before moving to play union in Japan.<\/p>\n
He played union for four years with Super Rugby’s Waratahs before switching to rugby league in 2024 to line up for the Roosters, and Sunday’s victory was the ideal sign-off as his two-year contract comes to an end.<\/p>\n
“Credit to the Knights, they fought for 80 minutes there,” said 26-year-old Nawaqanitawase.<\/p>\n
“This is going to last me a lifetime. It’s sad to go, but I love everyone here, I love all the boys, and let’s celebrate this win, far out.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Australian National Rugby League Grand Final Sydney Roosters (6) 19 Tries: Nawaqanitawase 2, Smith Goals: Walker 3 Drop…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":791929,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[5903,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-791928","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\/791928","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=791928"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/791928\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/791929"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=791928"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=791928"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=791928"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}