标签： Oceania

The Melbourne Storm’s NRL season has hit a dramatic rough patch, and a surprise guest appearance at the club’s recent training session has brought a mix of hope and uncertainty to the embattled outfit. Veteran Fijian prop Tui Kamikamica, who has not played since the club’s round four away match in Townsville, showed up unannounced to watch his teammates train this week, months after a life-altering suspected stroke that forced him to immediately step away from the sport.

Kamikamica was discharged from hospital following the medical incident earlier this year, but he has not been cleared to join any on-field training with the squad, and no timeline has been set for his eventual return to the NRL. His presence on the training sidelines ahead of Friday’s do-or-die clash against the Canberra Raiders is more about morale than a comeback, according to long-time Storm head coach Craig Bellamy.

Bellamy explained that he hopes the sight of Kamikamica recovering well after such a severe health scare will give his struggling side a much-needed emotional boost. The Storm have dropped four consecutive matches, a slump that has sparked widespread public debate about whether the club’s 20-year run of consistent dominance at the top of the NRL is finally coming to an end. After opening the 2025 season with blistering, lopsided wins over the Parramatta Eels and St George Illawarra Dragons, the Storm’s attack has stagnated, and their defense has leaked tries at a rate that has caught even seasoned observers off guard. Last week, the team suffered a humiliating home defeat to the New Zealand Warriors, where the Storm was outmuscled and overpowered in front of their own fanbase.

Beyond Kamikamica’s absence, the Storm has been crippled by key forward departures and injuries that have gutted their traditional physical edge in the middle of the field. Star big man Nelson Asofa-Solomona left the club and retired from rugby league entirely in the off-season, while elite edge forward Eli Katoa was ruled out of the entire 2026 season after suffering repeated concussions. The club has been forced to shift rookie Cooper Clarke out of his natural position to cover the gap, but there is some positive injury news on the horizon: forward Shawn Blore is in line to make his return from a foot injury for the Canberra away game.

Addressing the ongoing lack of size in his forward pack, Bellamy said the team has no choice but to adapt to the hand they have been dealt. “It’d probably be handy to have another big body, but we haven’t got it so we have to go with what we’ve got and work out what we need to do well,” the coach said. Speaking about Kamikamica’s return to the club, he added: “He has been through a really tough time. To see him back looking as good as he looks is good. He’s still got a little way to go, but it’s great to see him back. Hopefully having him back here for the training session can lift the boys’ spirits a little bit. We’re probably down on that a little bit, but hopefully that will give us a bit of a lift.”

Heading into Friday’s match, the Storm faces a steep challenge against a Raiders side that is coming off a thrilling upset win in Perth. Bellamy acknowledged that his side has produced inconsistent performances through the first half of the season, pointing to a string of injury disruptions and off-field upheaval as contributing factors to the current slump. “You don’t look back too much, you look forward and hopefully work out where we need to improve and get better,” he said. “We train for that and hopefully we do that. We’ve had a few disruptions with injuries and a few other things that happened off the field, so it’s been a bit of a tough time with that. On the field, we’ve been good in patches but then not so good in other patches so we need to be a bit more consistent.”

Despite the team’s struggles, there are bright spots for the Storm’s future. Fullback Sua Fa’alogo, a homegrown club product, has emerged as a consistent standout performer through the slump. And another young Victorian talent could make his NRL debut on Friday: exciting young prospect Hugo Peel, who recently scored a hat-trick in the NSW Cup, has been named to the Storm’s extended 20-man bench. Bellamy praised Peel’s work ethic and fitness, noting that while the NRL’s current substitution rules only allow four interchange players to take the field from a six-man bench, the young forward has earned his call-up through his reserve grade form. “He’s great in the effort areas. He’s fit as and he just wants to be involved in the game,” Bellamy said. “With how the system works these days, you’ve got six on the bench but can only use four, so whether he gets a run or not, that’s another thing. It’d be good for him to get his debut because he certainly deserves it with the effort he’s put in in reserve grade.”

As Parramatta Eels captain Mitchell Moses navigates the toughest leadership test of his professional rugby league career, a potential mid-season addition of star forward Jaydn Su’A sits firmly on the back burner, with an unprecedented injury crisis taking every ounce of his focus.

Speaking at an event launching Greyhound National Adoption Day alongside Sydney Roosters captain James Tedesco in central Sydney, Moses opened up about the unprecedented challenges his side has faced through the opening six rounds of the NRL season. The Eels are coming off a demoralizing 52-point defeat to the Gold Coast Titans, a result that saw the under-strength side booed off the field by frustrated fans at full-time. But Moses made clear the club has a valid explanation for its poor form: an injury toll that has gutted the playing roster unlike anything he has experienced in his career.

Three key first-team players – J’maine Hopgood, Bailey Simonsson and Matt Doorey – have already been ruled out for the entire 2024 season. For this weekend’s clash against the Canterbury Bulldogs, the list of unavailable talent grows even longer, with rising stars Jonah Pezet and Isaiah Iongi among the multitude of sidelined players. This has forced the Eels to field a roster heavy with inexperienced rookies, who are still learning the ropes of top-flight NRL football.

That youth-driven lineup has forced a shift in Moses’ approach to on-field leadership. Known for wearing his heart on his sleeve and not holding back when challenging teammates, the captain said he has had to rein in his outward frustration to avoid undermining the young players getting their first opportunities at the top level. “That’s the core challenge I’m facing right now as skipper – I’ve never encountered anything like this, even before I took the captaincy,” Moses explained. “I’ve never been part of a team that’s been hit this hard by injuries. It’s already unprecedented, but add the captaincy on top, and you have to figure out how to lead the right way. With all these young kids coming in, you don’t want to lose your temper and let that negativity filter through the group. I’m taking lessons from how I’ve led in the past and working to get better at this.”

The brutal 52-point defeat exposed major flaws in Parramatta’s defensive structure, with the side conceding a massive 226 points across the first six rounds of the season. A tough post-match video review only confirmed how far below the club’s standard the performance was. “To be honest, it was really tough to sit through that review,” Moses admitted. “It didn’t feel like us, as a team or as a club. This isn’t one person’s fault – it’s on all of us, and we all have to step up to fix this. This week’s match against the Bulldogs isn’t going to get any easier, either. There were moments in the Titans game where we could have clawed our way back into contention, and we failed to take those chances. We have to do better.”

A mainstay of the New South Wales Blues Origin squad for several years, Moses has been a consistent standout for the state side. But right now, he said, even thinking about Origin selection is impossible – every bit of his energy is focused on righting the ship at Parramatta. “My full attention is on this club right now, it’s the only thing I can focus on,” he said. “I’ve never been through anything like this injury crisis in my career, and as captain, I’m actually excited for the challenge of pulling us out of this slump. We’re not hiding from how bad the last performance was. We weren’t happy with it, we don’t want to see that again, and we’re going to step straight into the pressure to fix it.”

With the injury crisis mounting, speculation has grown that the Eels will look to the mid-season transfer market to bolster their thin roster. The most high-profile name linked with a move to the club is St George Illawarra Dragons forward Jaydn Su’A, who has already confirmed he will leave the Red V at the end of his contract, with a 2027 move to Parramatta already widely reported. Moses made clear he would jump at the chance to add a player of Su’A’s quality to the Eels’ right edge immediately, but stressed that any transfer deal is out of his hands as he focuses on leading the injury-hit side. “There’s no point hiding how bad our injury situation is right now,” Moses said. “If the club’s recruitment team decides bringing in someone like Su’A is the best move for us, I fully support whatever they think is the right fit for this team. When you talk about Su’A, any club would jump at the chance to add a player of his calibre. I’d love to have him here, but this decision isn’t up to me.”

As swirling rumors of imminent Saudi Arabian funding withdrawal sparked fears of an imminent collapse for the breakaway LIV Golf tour, league executives moved swiftly this Wednesday to reassure players and staff that operations and funding remain fully intact. The Saudi-backed circuit has roiled global men’s professional golf since its controversial 2022 launch, when it lured dozens of the sport’s top stars away from the established PGA Tour and DP World Tour with nine-figure guaranteed contracts that split the golf community.

Over the past week, speculation has grown that Saudi Arabia’s deep-pocketed backers, the Public Investment Fund (PIF), the kingdom’s $1 trillion sovereign wealth fund, have grown weary of the high-cost venture. To date, the project is estimated to have cost PIF more than $5 billion, with no path to near-term profitability. Multiple major outlets including the *Financial Times*, *New York Times*, and *Wall Street Journal* all reported this Wednesday, citing unnamed anonymous sources, that PIF’s exit from the tour was imminent.

But in an internal email to all players and staff obtained by Agence France-Presse, LIV Golf CEO Scott O’Neil sought to quash the uncertainty. “I want to be crystal clear: Our season continues exactly as planned, uninterrupted and at full throttle,” O’Neil wrote. The executive’s statement came as players gathered in Mexico City ahead of the tour’s upcoming event at Club de Golf Chapultepec, where organizers have doubled down on maintaining a business-as-usual posture. Tour officials published first-round tee times on schedule as planned, and even leaned into humor to address the speculation on social media. “Slow news day? We are ON,” read one social post, paired with a graphic reading “BREAKING NEWS. TUNE IN TOMORROW” alongside the tournament’s full starting schedule.

Unnamed sources close to LIV Golf’s operations also pushed back on the exit rumors to AFP, noting that the tour projects its revenue will double between 2024 and 2025, and pointing to record-breaking spectator turnouts at recent events held in Australia and South Africa. Still, questions remain: the *Telegraph* of London reported that top LIV Golf executives were summoned to a New York meeting this week to discuss contingency plans for a potential PIF withdrawal.

The speculation comes on the same day PIF unveiled a new five-year strategic plan that will restructure the fund’s global investment portfolio, an announcement that comes against a backdrop of rising geopolitical instability across the Middle East. The region has faced escalating security risks following a wave of Iranian strikes on military, energy, and transportation infrastructure that came after a joint U.S.-Israeli strike on Iranian targets in late February. Even before the current outbreak of conflict, Saudi Arabia’s domestic economic reform agenda faced pressure, as years of sustained low global oil prices have cut into government revenues.

Signs of internal instability have already emerged on LIV Golf’s player roster. Two high-profile golfers, five-time major champion Brooks Koepka and 2018 Masters winner Patrick Reed, have recently left the breakaway tour to secure a return to the PGA Tour. For the hundreds of remaining players still under LIV contract, the full implications of a potential PIF exit remain unclear. Speaking to reporters in Mexico City, LIV veteran and 2017 Masters champion Sergio Garcia noted that players have received no official communication of any funding shift. “We haven’t heard anything” since the start of the year, Garcia said, when PIF governor Yasir al-Rumayyan reassured golfers that the fund remained committed to the circuit as a long-term project.

In his Wednesday email, O’Neil did not directly refute the claims of an impending Saudi withdrawal, instead framing the current speculation as a growing pain common to new disruptive ventures. “The life of a startup movement is often defined by these moments of pressure,” he wrote. “We signed up for this because we believe in disrupting the status quo. We are pioneers, and while the road isn’t always smooth, the destination is worth every mile.”