Former St Helens star Moses Mbye addresses potential NRL return amid push for 20th team Down Under

Moses Mbye insists he has no intentions of trying to return to the NRL, and is instead focused on driving Ipswich Jets’ bid to become the 20th club in the premier first-grade competition Down Under.

Veteran utility Mbye, who will turn 33 in August, returned to Australia at the end of the 2025 season as he brought the curtain down on a three-year stint in Super League with St Helens.

A World Club Challenge winner during his time donning the Red V, the Brisbane-born ace had only played three games at second-grade level during his career before agreeing to join Queensland Cup outfit Ipswich.

But the man with 194 NRL appearances on his CV doesn’t have any plans of returning to first-grade rugby league, that despite the link the Jets have with Gold Coast Titans.

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‘It is not something I came here to do’

Mbye represented Canterbury Bulldogs, Wests Tigers and St George Illawarra Dragons in the NRL before heading to Super League, with his only second-grade experience prior to this year coming for the Bulldogs’ reserves.

As revealed in an interview with the Australian Associated Press (AAP), he joined the Jets in the Q Cup based upon a promise made to their chairman Steve Johnson a decade ago.

Now the Jets’ captain and enjoying himself in the halves, he shut down any talk of a potential NRL return, saying: “You never close the door on any opportunity, but it is not something I came here to do.”

Even when the made-up scenario of the Titans losing four of their halves to injury this season was put to Mbye, he joked: “Maybe I’d be the fifth.

“They have got plenty of young, really good quality halves down there. I’m happy to support them from the sidelines.”

‘Ipswich is the right demographic for rugby league… you can put a team here and you will fill the stands day one’

The NRL will expand to 19 teams over the next couple of years with the addition of the new franchise clubs, Perth Bears in 2027 and then PNG Chiefs in 2028.

Mbye wants the first-grade competition Down Under to reach 20 teams sooner rather than later, and believes that 20th club entering the NRL should be the Jets, who have been pushing for inclusion for nigh on two decades.

He said: “It just makes sense. Look at Sydney and the number of (NRL) clubs they have there. Brisbane has just two.

“Ipswich is the right demographic for rugby league. We don’t need to convert people. You can put a team here and you will fill the stands day one.

“North Ipswich Reserve is getting redeveloped and we have experienced guys like Steve Johnson who know the ins and outs of it and what a new side should look like.

“Ipswich as the 20th NRL team one day, it would brilliant.”