Penrith teammates believe Jarome Luai is “training very well” and that they haven’t noticed any difference in his attitude during pre-season training since the playmaker decided to sign with the Wests Tigers in 2025. Luai, who will play his final season with the Panthers in 2024 before moving to the Tigers, is expecting to be ready for next month’s World Club Challenge against Wigan after having shoulder surgery in October.
Luai missed the Pacific Championships series for Samoa after going under the knife shortly after helping the Panthers clinch their third straight NRL premiership. The five-eighth is not expected to engage in contact work in training until closer to the start of the season but Penrith teammate Dylan Edwards says the classy No.6 is tracking well amid hopes he’ll be fit in time for the World Club Challenge.
“I’m not sure of the exact time line, but he is training very well, doing a lot of rehab and working really hard, so he is going to give himself every chance,” Edwards told The Daily Telegraph. “We would love to send him off on a high note. He is still one of our brothers and he is going to compete as hard as he can this year, so hopefully send him off as a winner.”
Luai’s contract saga had been the biggest talking point of the off-season, with the 26-year-old ending weeks of speculation at the end of December by revealing he’d signed a five-year deal with the Tigers from 2025. The contract is reportedly worth around $6 million over the five years.
After news of his move from the Panthers became public, Luai took a week off before Christmas, before returning to pre-season training with his teammates in the new year. The playmaker admitted it had been a “tough process” to decide to move on from his boyhood club after winning three premierships with the Panthers, but teammate Sunia Turuva said Luai seemed like his regular self after re-joining the squad, who are determined to send the five-eighth out a winner.
