Souths Sharks sign former Canterbury-Bankstown and Melbourne Storm player Sam Kasiano for 2025

Souths Sharks coach Mark Bowden reveals how his club landed their fourth ex-NRL recruit for the 2025 season

Sam Kasiano (pictured left during his time with Canterbury-Bankstown in the NRL) will be a fearsome addition to Souths Sharks’ RLMD line-up for 2025. (AAP Image/Dean Lewins).

Souths Sharks undeniably been one of the top local rugby league recruiters in North Queensland this year, and yet they’re far from done yet after the announcement of the signing of Sam Kasiano.

Kasiano, a former Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldog and Melbourne Storm prop, is a New Zealand and Samoan international representative with more than 150 games of NRL experience under his belt.

But Souths’ A-grade coach Mark Bowden said the prospect of his side signing Kasiano had well and truly faded into the background at this point in their pre-season.

Kasiano has played for both Samoa and New Zealand at an international level. (Photo by Cameron Spencer/Getty Images)

“It initially was going to happen, but he had to pull out originally because of work commitments,” Bowden said.

“He has since reached out again and said he’d like to play for us, circumstances have changed a bit so he won’t be living in town but will be flying in for Thursday trainings and for the games on the weekend.

“It was something we had sort of forgotten about at this stage, but it fell in our lap again.

“Our stocks are looking good already, but we couldn’t knock back the opportunity to have a player like him in our line-up.”

He will join a growing list of big name recruits snapped up by the Sharks ahead of the upcoming season, with the likes of Ben Barba, Manu Ma’u, Kenny Edwards and more all set to line-up for Bowden’s team come round 1.

Barba and Kasiano were teammates on the Bulldogs side that lost to South Sydney Rabbitohs in the 2014 NRL grand final.

Bowden said the message he is pushing this season of cohesion and team bonding was the driver behind them wanting to have Kasiano for at least one training a week despite him living out of town.

Kasiano will join the likes of Dally M medallist Ben Barba on the Sharks squad this season. Picture: Michaela Harlow

“That’s important for us, there was a deep discussion between me and the president of the club about that,” Bowden said.

“(Kasiano) still has a family to support and he does work in construction down south, so it was a bit of a negotiation to see how much we could still get him around the club.”

As a testament to just how strong Souths’ line-up is this season, Bowden said there is no guarantee Kasiano will feature in the starting 13 every week.

“If he does start or doesn’t, that’s a conversation we’ll have later on,” he said.