Signings, Suggestions & Rumours Discussion

The Wests Tigers are reportedly firming as the first team likely to be on the plane to Las Vegas for the 2026 edition of the NRL season opener.

The NRL are in the midst of a five-year agreement to launch the season in the American entertainment capital, with the first edition seeing the Manly Sea Eagles, South Sydney Rabbitohs, Sydney Roosters and Brisbane Broncos making the trip last year.

This time around, the program of fixtures has been expanded, with the Penrith Panthers, Cronulla Sharks, New Zealand Warriors and Canberra Raiders to be joined by the Warrington Wolves and Wigan Wolves from the English Super League, as well as the Jillaroos and English women's team who will play a test match.

It's believed the four-match format could be what sticks moving forward, but which NRL teams will make the trip each year still remains to be seen.

Based on past timelines, things won't be confirmed for 2026 until at least the back-end of the coming season, but in a whispers segment on Triple M's new breakfast show Triple M Breakfast with Beau, Tarsh & Woodsy (featuring ex-NRL players Beau Ryan and Aaron Woods), it's reported the Tigers are firming to be among the four clubs.

The NRL have all but committed to having all of the current 17 teams play at least one game in Las Vegas over the five years, meaning eight teams are all but out of the mix for 2026.

The Tigers are one of the nine remaining clubs, with the Melbourne Storm, St George Illawarra Dragons, Canterbury Bulldogs and North Queensland Cowboys being among the others to have previously expressed interest, but not selected for 2025.

Penrith travelling this year means the World Club Challenge has been cancelled, and that could well play into the NRL's decision-making process ahead of 2026, with some speculation the Super League even wanted the match to be played in Las Vegas.

The Tigers, heading into their second season under Benji Marshall, are reigning wooden spooners, but expected to improve in 2026 after a sleight of new signings.

www.zerotackle.com

Las Vegas 2026 teams: Sydney team reportedly set to make trip

Four new teams will travel in 2026.
www.zerotackle.com www.zerotackle.com
 
Oldman said:
Seriously
“The only couple of positives in this is we've yet to see Latu injury free he could be anything“
Latu has been here for 1 full season and we are yet to see him injury free,
Let’s hope we see him fully fit sometime this year and maybe we will see why he is on such a big $ contract.
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Thats why i said we've yet to see him injury free, whats difficult to understand about that. He could be anything, could also be nothing much.
Hopefully we do get to see him injury free and he shows us what hes about, i wasn't trying to portray him as a savior just an unknown quantity.
 
das tigers said:
I like everyone expect to Luai and Galvin start the season in the halves.
I'm really looking forward to see Luai with Latu in the halves esp if Galvin
isn't really commital to us.
I really want Taylan May to join us as our 30.....depending on what happens there with court.
But right side backrow...Who does everyone think will start there?
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I'd try and get a solid defender at second row. Most teams have a damaging left side second rower (kikau, david fifita, angus crichton) outside the 5/8 and sam fainu can be that for us. The other side's biggest issue is defence. Need a great defensive centre and backrower there ASAP
 
rugbygoated said:
I'd try and get a solid defender at second row. Most teams have a damaging left side second rower (kikau, david fifita, angus crichton) outside the 5/8 and sam fainu can be that for us. The other side's biggest issue is defence. Need a great defensive centre and backrower there ASAP
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What pairing from our squad do you suggest.
 
batboy said:
Lot of 'facts' on here...

Here's a couple more
- The Craig Bellamys of the game turn Brenko Lees into Origin and Premiership Winning Players.
- Our Coach for the last couple years sends players to the Craig Bellamys of the world so they
can play in Grand Finals.
- The Craig Bellamys of the game have it's superstars continue to play under him, for less money than they can get elsewhere.
While our coach loses one of the better up and coming players in the game to Craig Bellamys
- for less money.

there isn't a Tigers fan, That wouldn't swap Benji for Bellamy in a heartbeat - Why?
Because he gets better results!!
And he's done that - Continuously, For a very, Very long time.

To say no coach would make our team better is the biggest cop out I've ever heard.
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Hard to disagree with most of that.

What I would add though is that Bellamy didn't walk into a club at the bottom of the table. Very rarely does any coach turn a club around from the worst in the league to being considered one of the elite within at least a few seasons of rebuild.

I mean, even Cleary walked into a Penrith squad a few years already in to a significant rebuild- so while he succeeded right off the bat, the ground work & tough times had already been trudged through. You could argue that the Bulldogs are coming out of the dark times now- but they are certainly not one of the elite teams as yet.

What the Tigers have set up through these juniors coming through & the recruitment of players like Luai & May, is make significant strides to getting toward being this consistant 'elite' group.

It's easier to turn a Brenko Lee into an Origin level player, when he's surrounded by elite level talent, than getting an emerging talent like Utoikamanu to hit his ability surrounded by guys like Reuben Porter.

The absolute best ever turn around, in the quickest time, that I can remember, is what we witnessed between 2003 & 2005. The team that Sheens built was remarkable.

And while it's easy to put the shank into him now- a lot of these promising emerging talents, that seem likely to turn the club around....well.....there's a certain amount of recruitment from Tim's time here...
 
crazycat said:
You sum up exactly what I think about Galvin.

Great player with good potential. I want to re-sign him, we will pay overs abit, we can stretch our cap. I don't want to ruin our cap signing him.

We will be loosing 1 of Galvin, Bula or Latu for sure.
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tigertragic said:
If you compare our ‘squad’ against the rest of the teams we are still a bottom 4-5 team. I hope we can finish a mid comp team (8-12), but unfortunately I can’t see it in 2025.
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Well prepare to enjoy. And believe. Don’t worry lots of ppl here think we will be bottom 4 in 2025.
 
BAGNF05 said:
I’m not saying he can coach or he’s proven anything, I just think this year he truly has a roster capable of winning in first grade. He’ll be judged on that.
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Yes…….My comment earlier that we should wait and see regarding Benji’s coaching abilities, was based exactly on this. Now that he has a team capable of competing at NRL level we shall see how he performs as a coach. I’m prepared to hold my judgement on him until then.
The last few seasons we have had the weakest and shallowest roster of Top30 players in the NRL and came exactly where we should have. The only reason it was even close at the end was due to the abysmal performances of a couple of much better squads.
 
cktiger said:
All this talk about Latu magically taking his spot without a hiccough without ever proving himself consistently in first grade is just living in hope.
Plenty of people are saying we shouldn’t offer Galvin a good contract because he’s only played around 20 games. Yet they’re quite happy to give his spot to a bloke who has hardly been on the first grade field at all… and, so far, has been injury prone.
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I really dont think there is any 'magic' involved.

Everyone talking about Latu is just saying at least we have him to fallback on, not that it's a guaranteed success - but given his potential, as was the same with Galvin, he could end up going as well.
 
Vicious said:
Have another look, the Dragons team of 2024 was full of size, power, speed, had an experienced rep halfback and an experienced game managing 5/8.
They were miles ahead of us in playing roster quality in 2024.
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Agreed. in 2024 they underachieved where as we over achieved! But 2025 if we overachieve we will see semi-finals and 2026 is a given! we will all enjoy. guaranteed!
 
Wildcat777 said:
I would like to double down…. If we had both coaching us….still the wooden spoon would have been ours. True fact…. Crap teams. Hence why the dead wood is being floated!
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These two men who’ve coached over 1500 top level club games between them and have made 20 grand finals would have done no better than a total greenhorn …tell me you don’t know football without directly stating so….
Fill your boots.
 
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