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

• 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.

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.

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.

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).

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.

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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