分类： sports

In a landmark moment marking the first visit by a North Korean sports team to South Korea in eight years, the head coach of Naegohyang Women’s FC has doubled down on a singular focus: competitive football, not political or cross-border fanfare. The team will face off against South Korea’s Suwon FC Women on Wednesday in a high-stakes semi-final match of the Asian Women’s Champions League, hosted at Suwon Sports Complex.

The rare inter-Korean football clash has sparked unprecedented public enthusiasm across South Korea. When general admission tickets went on sale last week, all 7,087 available seats sold out in just a few hours. Upon the team’s arrival at Incheon International Airport on Sunday, Naegohyang players and officials were immediately surrounded by crowds of journalists and local supporters holding handwritten welcome messages. Organizers estimate that around 3,000 spectators from South Korean civic groups, backed by Seoul’s Unification Ministry, will be in the stands to cheer on both squads.

However, structural political divisions prevent any official away contingent for the North Korean side. Since the 1950-1953 Korean War ended in an armistice rather than a formal peace treaty, the two Koreas remain technically at war, and North Korean citizens are generally barred from entering South Korea. At a crowded pre-match press conference on Tuesday, head coach Ri Yu Il pushed aside repeated questions about whether he expected South Korean fans to support his team, emphasizing that off-pitch dynamics are irrelevant to his squad’s goals.

“I’m not sure whether similar questions will continue to come up, but we are here solely to play football,” Ri told reporters. “Simply put, we will focus only on each match. Therefore, the issue of the supporters is not something I, as a coach, or our players need to concern ourselves with. We will concentrate exclusively on the game.” When asked about Naegohyang’s 3-0 group stage victory over Suwon earlier in the tournament, Ri dismissed the idea that the result would give his side any decisive advantage. “Just because they played in the group stage, it would be absolutely wrong to say that one team is stronger or weaker than another based solely on those results,” he said. “For us, our focus is simply on doing our best to achieve a good result in tomorrow’s match.”

Suwon captain Ji So-yun, a former Chelsea midfielder, acknowledged that the hype around the match is unlike anything she has experienced in women’s football. Ji framed the upcoming game as a hard-fought competitive battle, noting that Naegohyang’s squad is widely considered nearly as strong as North Korea’s full national women’s team, one of the top-ranked sides in the world. “When North Korean players compete, they tend to be very physical and there is also a lot of verbal confrontation on the pitch,” Ji said. “So our players should not back down. If they challenge us, we will challenge them back. If they kick us, we will kick them back.”

Context around the historic match reflects longstanding political divisions on the Korean peninsula. Under South Korea’s current President Lee Jae Myung, who has adopted a far more conciliatory stance toward Pyongyang than his conservative predecessor, Seoul has repeatedly proposed unconditional dialogue with North Korea — proposals that Pyongyang has yet to respond to. The Seoul government has allocated $200,000 to support the civic groups organizing cross-border cheering efforts, and local media reports that organizers have worked with authorities to establish cheering guidelines: under South Korea’s national security law, public displays of the North Korean national flag are banned, so groups have instead planned to wave unified flags depicting the entire Korean Peninsula, as was done in previous cross-border sporting events.

Women’s football is a consistent strength for North Korean international sport, with the country’s senior women’s national team holding 11th place in the current FIFA World Rankings — a stark contrast to the men’s national side, which sits at 118th. The winner of Wednesday’s semi-final will advance to Saturday’s tournament final, also hosted in Suwon, where they will face the winner of the other semi-final between Australia’s Melbourne City and Japan’s Tokyo Verdy Beleza.

Eight years after the last North Korean sports delegation crossed the border into South Korea, a historic inter-Korean football matchup is set to capture global attention on Wednesday, when North Korea’s Naegohyang Women’s FC takes on South Korea’s Suwon FC Women in the semi-finals of the Women’s Asian Champions League. The long-awaited visit has already sparked extraordinary public interest: all 7,087 general admission tickets sold out within hours of being released last week, and when the North Korean squad arrived at Incheon International Airport on Sunday, players and officials were immediately surrounded by crowds of journalists and local supporters holding handwritten welcome signs.

At a pre-match press conference held Tuesday at Suwon Sports Complex, head coach Ri Yu Il pushed back repeatedly on questions about whether his team expected cheers from South Korean fans, emphasizing that the squad’s sole priority is the game itself. “We are here solely to play football,” Ri told reporters. “Simply put, we will focus only on each match. Therefore, the issue of the supporters is not something I, as a coach, or our players need to concern ourselves with. We will concentrate exclusively on the game.”

Unlike typical international club matches, this clash has unique logistical and political constraints. North Korean citizens are generally barred from entering South Korea, meaning there will be no official away fan section for Naegohyang. Around 3,000 spectators from South Korean civic groups, backed by $200,000 in funding from Seoul’s unification ministry, are expected to attend and cheer for both squads. Organizers have had to navigate strict South Korean national security laws that prohibit public display of the North Korean national flag, a hurdle that mirrors approaches taken in past inter-Korean events: groups will instead wave unification flags depicting the entire Korean Peninsula.

Throughout the press conference, both Ri and team captain Kim Kyong Yong remained composed and showed no visible emotion, with all responses translated by a North Korean interpreter. Kim framed the match as an opportunity to honor support from home, saying “We will give our all to repay the trust and expectations of our people and our parents and families.”

Looking ahead to the semi-final, Ri downplayed the significance of Naegohyang’s 3-0 win over Suwon in the competition’s group stage earlier this year, noting that past results rarely predict future outcomes in knockout football. “Just because they played in the group stage, it would be absolutely wrong to say that one team is stronger or weaker than another based solely on those results,” Ri said. “For us, our focus is simply on doing our best to achieve a good result in tomorrow’s match.”

Women’s football is a standout sport for North Korea on the international stage: the country’s senior women’s national team currently ranks 11th in the FIFA global rankings, far outperforming the men’s side which sits at 118th. North Korean women’s sides have consistently competed at the highest levels of Asian and international competition.

The visit takes place against a tense diplomatic backdrop: North Korea has so far not responded to repeated calls for unconditional dialogue from South Korean President Lee Jae Myung, who has adopted a far more conciliatory stance toward Pyongyang than his conservative predecessor. The two Koreas remain technically at war, as the 1950-1953 Korean conflict ended in an armistice rather than a formal peace treaty.

The winner of Wednesday’s semi-final will advance to Saturday’s tournament final, also hosted in Suwon, where they will face the winner of the other semi-final between Australia’s Melbourne City and Japan’s Tokyo Verdy Beleza.

As two National Rugby League sides prepare for a rare Sydney-based faceoff this Friday night, a Melbourne Storm prop has highlighted striking parallels between his club’s catastrophic early-season losing run and the Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs’ current five-game losing skid.

For five consecutive seasons, this fixture has been hosted at Melbourne’s AAMI Park, but this week will mark the first time since 2021 that the two teams will take the field at Sydney’s Accor Stadium. Both squads will be missing key core players, who are sidelined for State of Origin representative duty, creating an unpredictable edge to the matchup.

The Bulldogs have plummeted down the ladder in recent weeks, dropping every match since their standout upset win over the league-leading Penrith Panthers in Round 6. For Melbourne, by contrast, a pair of back-to-back wins over the Wests Tigers and Parramatta Eels have pulled the club out of a historic seven-game losing streak that left many long-time Storm fans stunned.

With the season fast approaching its halfway mark, the loser of this Friday’s contest will slip into the competition’s bottom four. For Canterbury, the pressure is particularly intense: the side has failed to break the 20-point barrier in four straight outings, even with Melbourne set to be without star spine players Cameron Munster and Harry Grant for the clash.

Speaking to reporters ahead of the game, Storm prop Josh King, a key part of Melbourne’s recent turnaround, drew clear comparisons between the two sides’ current and past form slumps. “I haven’t watched too much of them this year, but it looks a lot like us,” King explained. “I’m still really confident – and I have been really confident – in our team, but we’ve struggled in a few areas in the game. I assume they’ve been working on different things and trying to figure it out, so I’m expecting nothing less than a really competitive game and for them to come out firing because they’re quite a physical team.”

After their unprecedented seven-game losing run, Craig Bellamy’s Melbourne side has begun showing glimpses of the form that carried the club to back-to-back NRL grand finals over the past two seasons. Though they currently sit in 13th place on the ladder, the Storm have yet to take their scheduled bye this season, and are still adapting to sweeping changes to referee rule interpretations that have reshaped the look of top-flight rugby league in 2024.

King noted that the back-to-back wins have done more than just lift the club up the ladder – they have injected much-needed confidence into Melbourne’s younger playing group, many of whom had not experienced consistent winning results at the top level before this run.

“It’s nice getting back in the winners’ circle,” King said. “In the overall season, we’re still not going too great with the start of the year that we had, but two wins on the trot gives some belief to the younger guys who probably haven’t experienced much winning in the past with the team.”

The Storm veteran added that subtle tactical and focus adjustments over the past fortnight have been the driving force behind the club’s recent improvement, after the side struggled to adapt to the new-look game under updated referee guidelines. “We’ve changed a few things in the last couple of weeks and shifted our focus to a few different areas, and I think that’s really worked for us and been really helpful,” he said. “There has been a growing period and understanding that the rules aren’t too different, but the game has certainly changed. In the last 12 months you can definitely feel it on the field and the influence that the referees have on the game. Adjusting to a few of those things and getting back to our old ways has helped.”

King also pointed out that integrating new playing personnel and building new combinations forced the club to reset and rebuild their core on-field foundations, a process that is finally starting to deliver results after a rocky start to the campaign. “We probably didn’t realise that getting a few new players and a few different combinations meant we needed to get back to our foundations and strengthen those up a little bit. I think we’ve had a bit of success with that in the past few weeks,” he added.

For years, top-tier club football has outcompeted international football for elite coaching talent, its unmatched salary packages and consistent exposure drawing the sport’s biggest names away from national team roles. But the 2026 FIFA World Cup is breaking that pattern, pulling five of the most respected coaches in the global game away from lucrative club positions to chase the one honor that no club success can match: World Cup glory.

Thomas Tuchel, the German manager who lifted the Champions League with Chelsea and won domestic titles across Europe’s top leagues with Paris Saint-Germain and Bayern Munich, is the latest high-profile hire for the English Football Association. Tasked with ending England’s 58-year drought for a major men’s senior tournament title stretching all the way back to their iconic 1966 World Cup win, Tuchel takes over from Gareth Southgate, who came closer than any other England manager in modern history to breaking the drought – leading the Three Lions to two European Championship finals and a World Cup semi-final. Still, Southgate faced persistent criticism over his in-game decision-making and tactical flexibility in high-stakes knockout matches. While Tuchel’s club-level resume is far more decorated than Southgate’s, questions hang over how his demanding, detail-oriented style will adapt to the unique rhythms of international tournament football. A particular challenge will be managing an England squad already worn down by the relentless, congested schedule of English domestic football ahead of the 2026 tournament, which will be held in North America’s summer heat.

Across the Atlantic, Brazil’s Selecao has turned to another European club legend to end its own 24-year wait for a sixth World Cup title. Carlo Ancelotti, the most successful manager in Champions League history with five trophy wins, has taken the helm after Brazil repeatedly fell to European opposition in late-stage World Cup knockout rounds over the past two decades. The Italian veteran brings unmatched experience navigating high-pressure knockout football, and already has an existing working relationship with Brazil’s biggest star: Vinicius Junior, who produced the best form of his career playing under Ancelotti at Real Madrid. This current Brazil side lacks the innate attacking flair that defined the nation’s legendary tournament-winning squads of the past, making a top-tier performance from Vinicius all the more critical if they are to lift the trophy again. Ancelotti’s famously calm demeanor and ability to manage big egos also make him well-suited to steady the often emotionally charged environment surrounding Brazil’s national team in their quest for global supremacy.

For the United States men’s national team, Mauricio Pochettino’s tenure ahead of 2026 has already been a rocky road. The Argentine manager has held the post for two years, but limited competitive match play has left his progress untested – and underwhelming results have drawn sharp criticism. Under Pochettino, the US failed to claim either the CONCACAF Gold Cup or Nations League titles, suffering embarrassing home losses to regional rivals Panama, Mexico, and Canada. A brief spark of optimism followed impressive friendly wins over Uruguay and Japan, but that momentum was quickly snuffed out by lopsided defeats to Portugal and Belgium in March 2025, leaving the host nation’s campaign still searching for momentum ahead of the tournament.

Uruguay turned to a revolutionary figure in modern coaching to lead their 2026 push: Marcelo Bielsa, the Argentine tactician whose high-pressing, attacking style has influenced generations of top managers from Pep Guardiola to Pochettino himself. This tournament marks Bielsa’s third time leading a different national side at a World Cup, and likely his final chance to claim global glory. Early qualifying wins over continental powerhouses Brazil and Argentina sparked widespread optimism around his appointment, but familiar cracks that have marked his club career have begun to show. Many of his young Uruguayan squad have struggled to meet Bielsa’s famously strict physical and tactical demands, and tensions boiled over after Luis Suarez retired from international football, revealing that Bielsa’s harsh half-time criticism reduced star striker Darwin Nunez to tears following a 2-0 qualifying win over Argentina. Results have also slipped in recent months, with Bielsa himself admitting he was “ashamed” after a 5-1 friendly defeat to the United States last November. Bielsa’s international history is mixed: his native Argentina crashed out in the group stage at the 2002 World Cup, but he guided Chile to the knockout round at the 2010 South Africa tournament.

Rounding out the list of elite hires is 38-year-old Julian Nagelsmann, who took charge of Germany after a three-tournament run of disastrous results for Die Mannschaft between 2018 and 2024, which included consecutive group stage exits from the World Cup and three straight tournaments without a knockout victory. Nagelsmann has already restored pride to the national side, and narrowly missed out on Euro 2024 glory on home soil, falling to eventual tournament winners Spain in the quarter-finals. Widely expected to return to club coaching after the 2026 World Cup, this is Nagelsmann’s only shot to lead Germany to a record-equaling fifth World Cup title. Complicating his task, Germany’s key attacking trio – Florian Wirtz, Jamal Musiala, and Kai Havertz – all struggled through poor form or injury problems during the most recent club season, leaving their fitness and sharpness in question for the summer tournament.

After more than two decades of calling northern Tasmania home, Australian Football League (AFL) side Hawthorn FC is facing an uncertain future for its Tasmanian membership and local staff, after the governing body ordered the club to cede all of its Tasmanian match rights to the newly admitted Tasmania Devils expansion team ahead of the Devils’ 2028 debut.

For years, Hawthorn has hosted four annual home-and-away fixtures and one pre-season match in Launceston, building deep roots in the northern Tasmanian community and creating some of the club’s most iconic on-field memories – including Lance Franklin’s legendary 13-goal performance against North Melbourne in 2012. The club had argued to retain its Launceston matches after the Devils’ entry, noting the expansion side would base its operations out of southern Tasmania’s Hobart. But AFL confirmed in an official announcement Tuesday morning that the new franchise will receive exclusive rights to host matches across the entire state, ending Hawthorn’s long-standing Tasmanian partnership.

Hawthorn president Andy Gowers confirmed the club has already entered discussions with AFL to relocate the five displaced matches, with the club’s top priority being securing four extra home games at the Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG), the league’s premier venue. Gowers also acknowledged the significant financial and community impact of the decision, noting that the Launceston games have long been a major contributor to the club’s bottom line. “I am not going to talk exact numbers (money lost), but what I will say is it is a significant factor in our bottom line and has been for a number of years. That’s part of our disappointment,” Gowers told reporters Tuesday.

The biggest immediate concern for the club is the future of its 8,000 local members and full-time Tasmanian-based staff, who have been core to Hawthorn’s presence in the region for decades. “That is clearly one of our major considerations. Members down there on the ground but also staff, we’ve got full-time staff who work there. We feel for them and we’ll be communicating with every member, all of our staff, all of the people down there who have supported us and got involved in the football program down there – we feel for them,” Gowers said. When asked whether AFL would assist displaced Launceston-based staff with re-employment in Tasmania, Gowers said he could not confirm any support arrangements at this time.

Hawthorn head coach Sam Mitchell echoed the club’s widespread disappointment, framing the decision as an unexpected loss of a second home for the club’s players and staff. “You know the people at the coffee shop, the hotels and go on the same sort of walks and around the same sort of people all the time. It feels like we’ve sort of been kicked out of a home and I understand, I guess, from the AFL’s perspective,” Mitchell said. “I mean it’s easy to group all of Tassie together, but we’ve spent the vast majority of our time in Launceston and we’ve loved our time there. We’re enormously disappointed we won’t get the opportunity to continue to be a part of that community.”

Despite the disappointment, Mitchell noted the club remains focused on its remaining 2024 season fixtures, with the team set to play its next scheduled Launceston match this Thursday night. “Having said that, we’ve still got seven games to go, so we’ll do our best to show how much they mean to us on Thursday night,” Mitchell added.

After months of sidelined frustration and a years-long streak of cruel injury setbacks, the wait for Hawthorn Football Club and its star Will Day is finally drawing to a close. The talented 24-year-old is set to make his first competitive appearance of 2026 this Friday, stepping onto the field for the Box Hill Hawks in the Victorian Football League (VFL) as part of a carefully structured comeback plan, putting him in line for a potential return to the top-tier AFL squad as early as next week.

Day’s path back to competitive football has been marked by repeated heartbreak. The young star has not seen a single minute of senior action in 2026, after damaging his shoulder during the club’s pre-season training camp. This latest injury blow follows a 2025 campaign cut short by a persistent foot injury, which itself came after a collarbone issue ended his 2024 season prematurely. Three straight years of season-interrupting injuries have kept one of the club’s most exciting prospects off the field far more than he has been on it, leaving fans hungry for his return.

Hawthorn head coach Sam Mitchell confirmed the comeback news in an upbeat briefing this week, noting that Day has passed every fitness benchmark after two full weeks of full training with the senior squad. “He’ll play this week, he’ll play some limited minutes on Friday night with Box Hill,” Mitchell said. “It’s pretty exciting, pretty exciting for Will and I think for all of us. He’s obviously a very high-profile player to be getting back and playing some VFL time.”

To protect Day from re-injury as he regains match sharpness, the club will manage his minutes very carefully in Friday’s outing. Mitchell outlined that the 24-year-old will start on the bench for each quarter to ease him back into the physical intensity of competitive play, and made clear that Day is not yet expected to be ready for full AFL-level action this weekend. “He certainly won’t be ready for AFL footy at this stage,” Mitchell added.

The coach did, however, hint that Day could be recalled to the senior side much faster than most injured players, thanks to the nature of his recovery. Unlike lower-body injuries that force athletes to spend weeks building back cardiovascular fitness, a shoulder injury allowed Day to maintain his conditioning throughout his recovery. “He’s obviously coming back from a shoulder which means he’s fitter, you can get a lot more physical work in, your physical profile, they can work pretty hard. So he’s going to be ready for AFL footy at a high level straight away. Sometimes when you get back from a foot or a lower leg injury, it’s hard to get the fitness base needed,” Mitchell explained.

Day’s potential comeback comes at a key juncture for Hawthorn, who are currently in the middle of their fixture run in Tasmania, with a match against Adelaide kicking off in Launceston this Thursday night, one of the club’s final seven scheduled games at the Apple Isle. Fans have long remembered Day’s standout performance in last year’s opening round, where he led the Hawks to a victory over Sydney at the Sydney Cricket Ground, a display that cemented his status as one of the club’s most promising young talents.

Mitchell said the club will not push Day to replicate that electric form straight away, but he is confident the young star will be able to contribute from his first minutes back on the field. The timeline for his senior return will depend on how Day pulls up after Friday’s VFL outing, with assessments of his movement, fitness and confidence set to dictate next steps. “To be determined, we’ll see how he goes this week, see how his movement is, how his confidence is,” Mitchell said. “When he gets back, stay back. That’s the aim, it could be as early as next week or it could be longer than that.”

For long-suffering Hawthorn fans who have followed Day’s injury battle over the past three seasons, Friday’s limited appearance will mark a small but incredibly exciting step forward for one of the club’s brightest stars.

The 2023-2024 English Premier League title race has entered its final, nail-biting stretch, with Mikel Arteta’s Arsenal side moving to the cusp of ending a two-decade-plus championship drought courtesy of a tense 1-0 victory over already-relegated Burnley at the Emirates Stadium on Monday.

Kai Havertz’s 37th-minute header from a Bukayo Saka corner proved the difference on the night, pushing the Gunners five points clear of defending champions Manchester City at the top of the table. Havertz’s goal marked Arsenal’s 18th Premier League goal scored from set pieces this season, a testament to the club’s well-honed tactical strength in dead-ball situations.

However, the result could have been drastically different. In the second half, Havertz mistimed a challenge that raked his studs down Burnley midfielder Lesley Ugochukwu’s calf, an incident that went to a VAR review for potential dismissal. In a call that kept Arsenal at full strength, referees opted to retain the original yellow card decision rather than upgrade it to a red card that would have left Arteta’s side to defend their narrow lead with 10 men for the final 25 minutes of play. Havertz was shortly substituted off for new signing Viktor Gyokeres, though the Swedish forward’s introduction did not unlock a second wind for Arsenal’s attack.

The match was far from the dominant victory many fans and pundits predicted. Buoyed by a sold-out home crowd for their final home fixture of the season, Arsenal were widely expected to cruise past a Burnley side that had claimed just two points from their previous 10 outings. But the already-relegated Clarets put up a staunch defensive fight, forcing the Gunners into a tense finale that kept spectators on edge until the final whistle. Before Havertz’s winning goal, Leandro Trossard hit the outside of the post from the edge of the penalty area, and a first-half penalty appeal from Bukayo Saka was turned away by officials.

The narrow win leaves Arsenal on the brink of their first Premier League title since 2001-2002, ending a 22-year wait. The Gunners could even lift the trophy as early as Tuesday, if Manchester City fails to secure three points away to Bournemouth. Even if City maintains its title push by beating Bournemouth and wrapping up its final two fixtures against Bournemouth and Aston Villa, Arsenal only needs one more win away to Crystal Palace this coming Sunday to seal the championship. A draw at Selhurst Park would open the door for City to claim the title on goal difference if Pep Guardiola’s side wins both of their remaining matches.

Speaking after the final whistle, Arteta emphasized that his side had completed everything within their control to put themselves in a winning position. “One more to go. We have done our job, what is in our hands. We have to wait and see what is going to happen tomorrow and then it’s time to prepare for the Palace game,” the Arsenal manager said. Acknowledging the narrow margin of victory, he added, “The margin should have been bigger but we haven’t achieved that. We have shown what we have shown all season that when we need to defend and get through the game, we can do it in an efficient way.”

That defensive efficiency has been key to Arsenal’s recent run: since their loss to City last month, the Gunners have kept four consecutive clean sheets in Premier League play, a solid foundation that has allowed them to extend their lead at the top of the table. The narrow result, however, still leaves a narrow opening for City to clinch a fourth consecutive Premier League title. Adding further drama to the final days of the season, multiple reports emerged on Monday that Guardiola is set to depart Manchester City after a trophy-laden 10-year tenure following the club’s final home match against Aston Villa on Sunday.

As the 2026 State of Origin series opener in Sydney draws closer, a key injured NSW Blues star has thrown his full support behind two controversial selection calls that have rocked the rugby league community. Injured Manly Sea Eagles captain Tom Trbojevic, who ruled himself out of the squad with a hamstring injury sustained in a match against the Cowboys last month, says rookie winger Tolu Koula will thrive despite his lack of top-flight NRL experience in the position.

Trbojevic, who is on track to return to club action no earlier than round 16 of the NRL season, opened up about the selection in an interview with SEN, where he heaped praise on the 22-year-old Manly speedster. Koula, who has been named on the left wing for the Origin opener, has never featured in the position at the NRL level, though he has played wing previously in the NSW Cup and for his home nation of Tonga in international competition. Despite the inexperience at the sport’s highest domestic level, Trbojevic says Koula’s natural aggression and athleticism make him the perfect fit for the role. “He’s a very confident kid. When he gets on a footy field, he absolutely goes after it. It’s going to be no different come next Wednesday night,” Trbojevic said. “The way that he moves is incredible. He’s going to be a real strike for them out wide.”

The selection of Koula over veteran Blues winger Josh Addo-Carr has been one of the most talked-about calls from new NSW coach Laurie Daley, but Trbojevic also threw his weight behind another high-profile selection: the recall of former Blues captain James Tedesco, who will start at fullback after edging out in-form Penrith Panthers star Dylan Edwards for the spot. Tedesco will make his first Origin appearance since 2024, after continuing the red-hot form that earned him the 2025 Dally M Medal into the opening rounds of the 2026 NRL season. Trbojevic noted that choosing between the two elite fullbacks was an unenviable task for Daley, but said Tedesco is more than ready to deliver for his state.

“He’s been unbelievable this season and last year, and he’s picked up this year where he left off,” Trbojevic said. “He’s always been very damaging around the ruck and gets the ball late in sets to attack tiring forwards, but he’s also done a lot of good work out wide, and that’s where he’s grown a lot. I wouldn’t like to be Laurie Daley in that situation because they’re two incredible players, but whichever way you go, you’re going to get someone to do a job.”

Trbojevic also praised the selection of his Manly teammate Haumole Olakau’atu, who will earn his first starting Origin spot on the right edge after several appearances off the bench over previous series. Olakau’atu has been in dominant form for the Sea Eagles to open the 2026 season, with Trbojevic arguing the forward has been one of the best players in the entire competition over the past two months. “I thought he was almost the first one picked the way he’s played the last seven or eight weeks,” Trbojevic said. “He’s been our best player and has almost been the best player in the comp the way he’s gone after it. He’s obviously played Origin before coming off the bench, but if you give him that opportunity to start on the right edge, it really suits him because he can get into the game and hopefully can cause some havoc.”