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THE South Sydney Rabbitohs are set to unveil a new-look lethal left edge with NSW Blues strike weapon Keaon Koloamatangi shifting from the right side of the field to the left.
Already renowned for having the NRL’s most dangerous left side combination the Bunnies will further enhance their strike power with the presence of Blues forward Koloamatangi and star new recruit Jack Wighton at left centre.
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While Wighton is suspended until the round three grudge match against arch-rivals Sydney Roosters the prospect of Cody Walker, Koloamatangi, Wighton, Alex Johnston and Latrell Mitchell combining out the back will give Souths left side enormous strike in attack.
The Bunnies will partially showcase the major shift for the first time in Saturday night’s Charity Shield against St George Illawarra at Jubilee Oval in Kogarah with Koloamatangi to start as left edge backrower and Jai Arrow to start on the right side.
Koloamatangi, 25, has previously played the majority of his NRL career as a right edge backrower and also made a powerful debut for NSW there in Origin III last year.
New South Sydney recruit Sean Keppie has also been super impressive over the summer and is expected to win a starting spot in the front row for the season-opening double-header in Las Vegas on March 3.
Keppie will lock horns with his old club Manly when Souths and the Sea Eagles launch the 2024 NRL season into orbit.
The only place to watch the opening game of the history-making foray into the entertainment capital of the world in Las Vegas will be live and exclusive on Fox League.
TRUTH BEHIND COWBOYS $900K DIVORCE
THE Cowboys play to move on Luciano Leilua is a smart one with the destructive edge backrower on a deal worth a tick over $900,000-a-season.
Compare that with the $350,000-a-season deal Queensland and Kangaroos forward Reuben Cotter is currently on and it makes complete sense.
Newly-crowned North Queensland Cowboys co-captain Cotter has developed into pound-for-pound one of the best forwards in the NRL over the course of the last two seasons.
But when Cotter signed his current deal three years ago he was only an emerging backrower who’d had a tough run with injuries.
Considering where his career was at it was a decent contract.
From 2019 to the end of the 2021 season Cotter only played 21 NRL games with the majority coming as an interchange player.
Since then he’s caught fire in the State of Origin arena for Queensland and on the international stage for Australia so the money the Cowboys save by letting Leilua go can be better invested.
How did the Cowboys end up paying Leilua a tick north of $900,000-a-season?
The simple explanation is the edge forward had a ratchet clause meaning he got a 15 per cent increase once the NRL resolved the collective bargaining agreement last year.
The Cowboys are also in the enviable situation of having a top 30 roster stacked with backrow talent in the form of Jeremiah Nanai, Heilum Luki and young gun Kulikefu Finefeuiaki.
Finefeuiaki, 20, was named North Queensland’s rookie of the year last season and has rival clubs queued up to try and sign him for next season.
As destructive as Leilua can be on his day, the Cowboys are better off investing the money elsewhere.
Is the Leilua deal to St George Illawarra simply a matter of waiting for the ink to dry on the contract?
The dragons are confident they’re in the box seat.
ALL EYES ON RISING EELS HALF
THE next generation of NRL superstars will be showcased over the course of the next eight days now the NRL official trials are live and exclusive on Fox League.
And there’ll be three young guns in particular with a big watch on them when the Parramatta Eels and Canberra Raiders clash at Jubilee in Kogarah on Saturday evening.
Parramatta’s elite junior pathways have been humming for the past couple of seasons and two of the Eels best local juniors are undoubtedly halfback Ethan Sanders and fullback Blaize Talagi.
Both were part of the Eels premiership-winning SG Ball side last season with Sanders named man of the match in the grand final win over Newcastle.
Talagi has been named at fullback but is equally comfortable playing five-eighth or in the centres.
Sanders is the emerging NSW Origin under 19s halfback who the Raiders have had their eye on for some time.
As the NRL rules sit at the moment in relation to development players the Raiders can’t formally table an offer to Sanders until after round six this season.
Expect the Green Machine to make a play then and with Mitchell Moses and Dylan Brown signed on long-term deals then Sanders will have a major decision to make.
For the Raiders there been a big buzz around fullback Chevy Stewart for the past couple of seasons after Canberra poached the Cronulla junior.
If Stewart flies in the trials don’t be surprised if he’s in contention for the Raiders NRL no.1 jumper come round one.
VEGAS PUSH GETS BIG TICK
ONE of the greatest administrators rugby league has ever seen – Kangaroos and Eastern Suburbs forward John Quayle – once famously coined the phrase if you build a fence around it you’ll never get out of your own backyard.
Quayle, who now lives a quiet life working on a farm in the Hunter Valley running cattle and a vineyard, has thrown his full support behind the NRL’s foray into opening the new rugby league season in the entertainment capital of the world Las Vegas.
Forget the narcs trying to shoot poison darts out of the long grass about how the Viva Las Vegas experiment won’t work, Quayle has seen it all before through the introduction of State of Origin, the expansion of the NSW Rugby League in 1988 and the hugely-successful marketing campaign where Tina Turner became the face of rugby league.
“The thing that impresses me the most about the Las Vegas vision is it’s an on-going commitment from the NRL,” Quayle told Fox League.
“When we went to America almost 40 years ago our goal was a similar one in that we wanted to try and open the game up to a new audience.
“But the difference was back then in terms of television audience there was only really ESPN that you could aim to do business with.
“Now in the modern world there’s so many different forms of revenue you can try and open up.
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“The fact it’s being shown live into Fox Sports in America is an enormous coup for the game.
“To stage the opening of the new season in one of the greatest stadiums in the world it truly is a wonderful thing the league has done.”
For the first time in NRL history the opening game of the 2024 season between Manly and South Sydney will be shown live and exclusively on Fox League on Sunday March 3 (AEST).
Like anything new in rugby league there’s always going to be detractors when it comes to making major changes.
The Vegas experiment is no question a roll of the dice and plenty of figures within the game have been openly criticising the timing and strategy of the move.
Quayle simply points to the success of State of Origin, the Tina Turner advertising campaign and the expansion of the old NSWRL competition as examples of why the critics can often get it wrong.
“There’s always going to be critics but if we’d listened to the critics back in our day then we never would have expanded the competition outside of NSW,” Quayle said.
“We wouldn’t have gone to Brisbane, North Queensland, Melbourne or New Zealand and we certainly wouldn’t have taken State of Origin interstate.
“It’s not a bold experiment in my view it’s the next step in terms of the development of the game.
“Back in the 1980s and 1990s it was Kangaroo Tours – now in the modern world it’s the opening of the new season in the entertainment capital of the world.
“It’s going to be a history-making event for rugby league.”
NRL STARS TO FOLLOW IN TAYLOR SWIFTS FOOTSTEPS
WHAT do pop queen Taylor Swift and Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce have in common with the upcoming opening of the NRL season in Las Vegas?
The vision of the two superstars partying in the aftermath of the SuperBowl that went viral around the world was filmed at the Resorts World nightclub called Zouk.
Resorts World is the same brand new, billion-dollar resort and casino where 120-plus NRL players, coaches and staff will stay when they officially touch down in the entertainment capital of the world for the opening of season 2024.
The Manly Sea Eagles will spend the entire week in Las Vegas while the Sydney Roosters and Brisbane Broncos will be based in Los Angeles and South Sydney will be in San Diego.
But once all the clubs land in Vegas in the countdown to the opening of the season Resorts World will be base camp.
Zouk nightclub sits inside the ground floor of the enormous Resorts World complex situated at the northern end of the world famous Las Vegas strip.
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