Brisbane Broncos coach Kevin Walters has confirmed his club will have no interest in retiring forward Tevita Pangai Junior if he pursues a return to the NRL.
Pangai Junior commences his NRL career at the Broncos and went on to play 97 games for the club before exiting in the middle of the 2021 season, where he joined the Penrith Panthers, won a premiership and then joined the Canterbury Bulldogs at the start of last season.
Struggling for form throughout his stint at Belmore, Pangai Junior confirmed last week the shock decision that he would retire from the NRL to instead take up boxing.
That hasn't stopped plenty of rumours from circulating that the 27-year-old forward will quickly look for a way back into the NRL though, most likely through a Queensland-based club.
Walters, speaking after his club's captain's run ahead of Saturday's game with the Canberra Raiders, said the Broncos wouldn't be able to afford Pangai Junior even if they did want him, having recently re-signed State of Origin duo Payne Haas and Patrick Carrigan.
"No there wouldn't be [any interes] because we don't have any room in our salary cap," Walters told the media.
"We signed Payne Haas a couple of weeks ago and Pat Carrigan. All these guys are our middles and we wouldn't be able to finance Tevita.
"He has had a really good career here and then he moved down to the Bulldogs. I'm not sure where he will end up next year, boxing might be a good opportunity for him, but I think we will find him back in a league jersey, maybe across the bridge somewhere.
"He is coming back to south east Queensland. It won't be us. Maybe the Dolphins or the Titans would entertain him as well."
Walters linking the Dolphins to Pangai Junior comes after the expansion club's coach Wayne Bennett admitted he would likely offer Pangai Junior an NRL return.
โI won't knock Tevita Pangai back if he wants to come to the Dolphins,โ Bennett said during the week via News Corp.
โAt this stage, I've had no conversations with Tevita. I'm not privy to anything going on with him. He hasn't spoken to me, we haven't crossed paths and I didn't know he was doing this (leaving the NRL to take up boxing).
โI have no idea if Tevita is moving back to Brisbane or taking up boxing full-time. Tevita better be a good boxer because he won't make a lot of money if he ain't. He is on a big contract in rugby league, so I don't quite understand why he has done it, but anyway, it's his choice.
โIf Tevita is keen to play rugby league again, I would certainly be interested in talking to him, but I'm just letting him go on his own path right now.โ
The forward's interest in playing rugby league again remains to be seen though.
His retirement came as a shock, but the reason behind it was even more so on the surprising end of the scale, with the forward saying he never truly liked the sport.
"I feel like rugby league was forced on me as a kid. I didn't really want to play league or footy as a kid, my parents forced me into it because I'm Polynesian and that's what we do. We're big, we're solid and we run into people," he told 9 News during the week.
