There are players who win premierships and players who define them. Brian To’o has spent seven years being both, and on Monday morning the NRL learned that the most beloved winger of the Penrith dynasty will finish his story somewhere no one could have imagined a decade ago, Port Moresby.

Penrith and the PNG Chiefs jointly confirmed To’o will leave the foot of the mountains at the end of 2027 to join the game’s 19th franchise on a three-year deal from 2028. He is the Chiefs’ sixth signing and is one of their most significant.

To’o grew up in Sydney’s west, went to Rooty Hill High, played his juniors for the St Marys Saints, and debuted for the Panthers in round 10 of 2019 against the Warriors. He was never the quickest winger in the competition and never pretended to be. What he was, and remains, the hardest winger in rugby league to defend. By the time New South Wales picked him for Origin I in 2021, he led the entire NRL in run metres and post-contact metres in any position. He answered on the representative stage by scoring twice in a 50–6 demolition of Queensland.

The trophy cabinet reads like a fever dream. Four consecutive premierships from 2021 to 2024. Three minor premierships. Dally M Winger of the Year in 2021 and 2024. A World Cup final with Samoa in 2022 and a place in the Team of the Tournament. Add hat-tricks in a preliminary final and an Origin game, and syndesmosis injuries in three separate seasons that he simply refused to let define him.

For the Chiefs, this is the signing that turns a concept into a football club. Jarome Luai is already there, along with Alex Johnston, Zac Lomax, Connor Watson and Matty Lees, with Willie Peters as head coach and Anthony Seibold as an assistant. Chiefs football boss Michael Chammas framed To’o’s value in cultural terms and argued that he will help set the standards that will shape the foundations of the club. In a rugby league nation where the sport is closer to religion than recreation, importing a Pacific-heritage superstar who plays with unashamed joy is not marketing. It is foundation-laying.

Penrith, characteristically, has already built the succession. Tom Jenkins is the competition’s leading try-scorer and contracted to 2029. The Panthers will be fine. But Papua New Guinea just got its heartbeat.