Papua New Guinea has emerged as the surprise front runner to become the NRL's 18th team.
While the Dolphins only joined the competition, their immediate competitiveness and the NRL's desire to have an 18th team in play for the start of the next TV broadcast agreement, if not before, means they are ready to surge ahead with an 18th team.
It has been widely believed that the favourite would be a team in Perth, who could have potentially also been linked up with the North Sydney Bears.
The Perth-based team would have provided the NRL a number of benefits, the biggest being the ability to play later games in prime time for a local audience. The Sunday night and possible late timeslot had been earmarked as those which could easily be filled by a Perth-based team.
Western Australia has also hosted both State of Origin and club games in recent years with great success, with the city seemingly primed for its first professional rugby league team since the demise of the Western Reds before the turn of the century.
A second team in New Zealand on the back of the success of the Warriors in 2023 had also been floated.
But now multiple reports are suggesting Papua New Guinea has become the front-runner to secure an 18th NRL licence.
Channel 7's Michelle Bishop told SEN Radio that the race to be named the 18th NRL team is down to one, and that an announcement could be made soon, with the team then to enter the competition as soon as 2025.
โThere is so much happening behind the scenes and my mail is it's simply a one-horse race,โ Bishop told SEN.
โPNG, in 2025, will become the 18th franchise.โ
BREAKING | @7MichelleBishop tells @VossyBrandySEN: "My mail is PNG will be the #NRL's 18th team and it's not too far off from being made official."
— SEN Breakfast with Vossy & Brandy (@VossyBrandySEN) October 18, 2023
The Australian government has previously committed funding to the Papua New Guinean side in the realms of $5 million, with it seemingly a play to buy the political influence of the nation that could follow the way of other nations in the Pacific and join allegiances with China.
Papua New Guinea - where rugby league is the national sport - have provided a handful of players to the elite competition, and the support for the game has been evident to see in recent times, with Port Moresby first hosting the Australian Prime Minister's XIII team, and the ongoing tri-series for Pacific Bowl with the hosts taking on Fiji and the Cook Islands.
Following the Prime Minister's XIII game, Tino Fa'asuamaleaui said it was "as loud as an Origin game."
โThis is my first time in PNG, it was one of the most crazy experiences I've ever had in my rugby league career,โ Fa'asuamaleaui said per NRL.com at the time.
โThe crowd was loud; it was almost as loud as an Origin game.
โWe couldn't really hear each other out there.
โI thought I would be the lowest name here in the team and I didn't think I'd really get noticed, but arriving at the airport and even at the game there, I saw that many big signs saying 'Big Tino, the Enforcer'.
"The people were very welcoming and it was a great experience, so I will definitely remember that.
โAnd they're just such a good team, such a good culture and such good people around the place. It's something I will remember forever."
