A PNG team will enter the NRL in 2028. We took $12.5m and built their inaugural roster

Coming to an NRL franchise not so near you – Port Moresby, to be precise – will be a whiteboard.

The interminable expansion talks and reports will finally culminate in a Papua New Guinean NRL side being announced this week. Now the fun begins.

And the whiteboard mapping out the all-important 2028 roster becomes the most important item in the planned Port Moresby centre of excellence.

Real-life fantasy football, with real-life recruiting challenges never before seen in the NRL, starts now – albeit with a four-year burn until a side has to be put on the paddock.

With little appetite for the politics, false starts and grandstanding of what is no doubt a historic move, we put our general manager’s cap on and get into the nitty-gritty of creating a 30-man roster, with lessons and theories gleaned from the successes and failures of previous expansion outfits and the men who built them.

The PNG plan, variables and non-negotiables

• The current salary cap will have increased by the time the PNG team enters the competition in 2028, with the inclusion of the club in what will be at least an 18-team competition aimed at increasing the NRL’s broadcast deals. As it stands, each NRL club is operating under a $12.1 million top 30 salary cap in 2027 once motor vehicle allowances ($100,000) and veteran player allowances ($300,000) are included. We’re conservatively estimating that cap will rise to around $12.5 million in 2028 and are working to that budget.

• As per roster benchmarking and analysis discussed with this masthead by several NRL club figures, we’re aiming to spend roughly 70 per cent of our salary cap on our starting 13.
• Up to a third of our roster will be spent on middle forwards. We’re spending big on playmakers and two marquee stars and looking to save money with utility players able to cover multiple positions out wide and in depth roles.

• We make no apologies for raiding the talent stocks of the best clubs in the game, like Melbourne and Penrith. We want marquee players and we want to be successful from the outset.
• Signings for PNG are likely to be exempt from paying tax under amendments to income tax law recently introduced to parliament – a significant bargaining chip that can save a $1.2 million star up to $550,000 a year.

• It will be needed, given relocation to Port Moresby – one of the world’s most dangerous cities – will see players, staff and their families living in a secure accommodation village. Who’s best suited to that lifestyle – young, potentially less mature players, or older heads more likely to be uprooting young families to do so?
• We have recruited only from players coming off contract in 2027, and a few in 2026 after urging them to sign one-year deals and keep themselves available for us 12 months down the line. We won’t be approaching anyone under contract – that’s illegal in the NR.
• PNG bid boss Andrew Hill and his team have been developing a pathways program that draws on Penrith’s prizewinning set-up, with investment in coaching and officiating as well. We’re making a local connection a priority in our roster as well given the undoubted potential in PNG’s talent pool.

The priority signings

Sam Walker, Hamiso Tabuai-Fidow, Xavier Coates and Spencer Leniu are our targets. Chief playmaker, bona fide star, another with Papua New Guinean roots and a leading front-rower.

Before his passing in 2021, inaugural Western Reds coach and career-recruiter Peter Mulholland subscribed to two marquee players – “who you might have to pay 10-15 per cent more than the rest of your players” and “two quality props at least” as the ideal club building blocks.

Sam Walker: A halfback to build a club around. Credit: Getty Images

Nathan Cleary is the prized target but we just can’t see him leaving Penrith. So Walker is our scrumbase star and will be paid accordingly – we’re banking on the half a million dollars saved on tax sweetening our deal for the Roosters No.7.

Tabuai-Fidow, still just 23, is the type of player who can light up a nation, and has emerged as the Dolphins’ own marquee man after the last expansion club missed out on a string of signing targets.

If $2.4 million across Tabuai-Fidow and Walker is too much of an outlay, emerging Titans fullback Keano Kini is our back-up target.

Coates – born in Port Moresby and a Kumuls international – brings the local connection and ability to shift to centre, while Leniu will be 28 in 2028 and coming into his prime as a front-rower.

The prospect of the NSW Origin enforcer strutting, huffing, puffing and coming off the back fence in PNG is one we just can’t resist, and we’re tipping the locals will be of the same mind.

Imagine Xavier Coates taking flight in Papua New Guinea.Credit: Getty

Just as Tabuai-Fidow has helped the Dolphins capture the imagination, our quartet of star signings are nothing if not entertainers. Make PNG everyone else’s second-favourite side with magic and madness, we say. What’s the point of fantasy football otherwise?

The roster breakdown, local boys and philosophy

Rising Dolphins star Max Plath may well be a Queensland Origin regular by the time PNG is up and running, but the 23-year-old represents utility value and salary cap savings.

Plath is our pick at hooker with the ability to shift to lock, and with Storm middle Josh King offering similar cover in the front-row, you’re adding more value and cover for one roster position.

Accordingly, mid-tier players like Kayal Iro, Kaeo Weekes, Connor Tracey and Erin Clark are among our wider roster targets.

Most NRL clubs spend big on their frontline playmakers – in our case Walker and Storm half Jonah Pezet – while their back-ups sit in roster spots 20-30.

Cowboys rookie Jaxon Purdue is our pick given he will still only be 23 in 2028, while hooker is where we see real value in Papua New Guinea’s own emerging talent.

Kumuls livewire No.9 Edwin Ipape will be familiar to some fans already, and has the likes of Judah Rimbu (the 2024 Queensland Cup player of the year) and schoolboy Finley Glare following in his footsteps.

Edwin Ipape in action for Papua New Guinea.Credit: Getty

Most NRL squads feature half a dozen or so players aged between 19-23, and picking schoolboys and teenagers to emerge in four years time is a task beyond us, especially when they’d be moving to compound life in Port Morseby.

Rising Titans prop Josiah Pahulu – currently agitating to leave the club after missing out on a bonus payment – is one 20-year-old worth building a middle rotation around in four years time.

Roughly a third of NRL salary caps (at least $3.5 million by 2027/28) is spent on the big boys, and we’re hoping a front-row/middle market stagnated by lost development years due to COVID-19 has sped up again.

The likes of Brisbane’s Xavier Willison, Rabbitoh Davvy Moale, Pahulu and Wests Tigers’ Fonua Pole will be in their mid-20s by 2028, though we’re thinking we can only afford one out Willison and Pole (both off-contract at the end of 2027).

Notable off-contract players at the end of 2027

Fullbacks: Jahream Bula, Scott Drinkwater, Clint Gutherson, Isaiah Iongi, Kalyn Ponga, Chevy Stewart, Hamiso Tabuai-Fidow, Sunia Turuva

Outside backs: Campbell Graham, Jacob Kiraz, Junior Pauga, Brian To’o, Dallin Watene-Zelezniak, Dominic Young, Jack Wighton, Latrell Mitchell, Paul Alamoti, Bradman Best, Jack Bostock, Stephen Crichton, Jack Howarth, Valentine Holmes, Tolu Koula

Halves and hookers: Luke Brooks, Matt Burton, Latu Fainu, Cameron Munster, Jayden Sullivan, Kaeo Weekes, Nathan Cleary, Lewis Dodd, Ethan Sanders. Sam Walker, Mitchell Woods, Max Plath, Wayde Egan, Peter Mamouzelos 

Forwards: Spencer Leniu, Reagan Campbell-Gillard, Josh Aloiai, Tom Flegler, Moeaki Fotuaika, Royce Hunt, Moses Leota, Terrell May, Daniel Saifiti, Jacob Saifiti, Alex Twal, De La Salle Va’a, Stenao Utoikamanu, Xavier Willison, Jai Arrow, Mitch Barnett, J’maine Hopgood, Corey Horsburgh, Max King, Fonua Pole, Victor Radley, Jason Taumalolo, Connor Watson, Isaah Yeo.Edge forwards: Ryan Couchman, Kulikefu Finefeuiaki, Jackson Ford, Jeremiah Nanai, Eliese Katoa, Ethan Bullemor, Coen Hess, Dylan Lucas, Matty Nicholson, Liam Martin, Isaiah Papali’i, Briton Nikora, Brendan Piakura, Jacob Preston, Jordan Riki, Hudson Young, Ben Trbojevic.

North Queensland’s Griffin Neame is also on our radar. So too late-blooming Storm prop Lazarus Vaalepu, who debuted this year at 25, and young Papua New Guinean middles Cooper Bai (son of Storm cult hero Marcus) and Kafe Renson.

The coach and a culture club

The first and most important call of all is the man pulling it all together.

Current Kumuls coach Jason Demetriou and predecessor Justin Holbrook are two obvious contenders, while Wayne Bennett will be 78, but off-contract at least, before PNG even take the paddock.

Ex-Eels coach Brad Arthur is another with credentials to take up an expansion side, though a potential Perth posting is in his sights, too.

Jason Demetriou has landed with the PNG Kumuls after being sacked by South Sydney earlier this year.Credit: Steven Siewert

Either way, the Dolphins made a point of targeting Melbourne’s vaunted playing stocks to fill key leadership positions, with the Bromwich brothers and Felise Kaufusi instrumental in their first two seasons.

The Bulldogs also made a point of signing players from Penrith, the Roosters and Cronulla in their recent roster overhaul to help implement the higher standards of regular top-four sides.

Given the challenges a PNG side can anticipate living and playing out of Port Moresby, a similar approach appeals. So does involving Kumul veterans Justin Olam, Alex Johnston and Rhyse Martin in some capacity – though each will be well into their 30s by 2028.

If the knees and shoulders are still up to the daily grind of top-flight rugby league, get them in. And if not, get them in anyway. Because believe it or not, Papua New Guinea has the whiteboard out and is building an NRL roster.

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