Newcastle Knights centre Gehamat Shibasaki to quit the club to play rugby in Japan

The deal is expected to be finalised within the next few days and will see the 23-year-old link up with former Wallabies coach Michael Cheika at Japanese Top League club NEC Green Rockets.

Shibasaki, who has Japanese heritage through his great-great-grandfather, is contracted to the Knights for next season but the club won't stand in his way and is expected to formally grant him a release within days.

After debuting with Newcastle last season, Shibasaki has played 14 NRL games with the club but just three this year after struggling for form earlier in the season.

He had a horror night with his handling, playing on the wing in an upset loss to the Wests Tigers in round three at McDonald Jones Stadium and was dumped from the side a fortnight later after the Knights suffered a crushing 42-16 loss to the Gold Coast Titans.

He hasn't featured since then and was considered so far off the pace and out of favour when the competition moved to Queensland in mid-July, he failed to even win a place in the Knights' 29-man squad that relocated to the Sunshine Coast.

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Knights coach Adam O'Brien refused to discuss Shibasaki's future and pending move to Japan when contacted by the Newcastle Herald but said the decision to leave him behind in Newcastle and not take him to Queensland was made to "balance the squad".

"Gehm missed out on coming up because we thought we already had enough cover in the backs and decided to take an extra forward," O'Brien said.

"There was nothing more to it than that. He had some things to work on after those games earlier in the season and wasn't able to force his way back in but he never had a line put through him."

A Townsville junior, Shibasaki was first signed by the Broncos as a 15-year-old but after a stellar junior career that included Queensland representative honours, his career at senior level hasn't kicked on as expected.

While the Knights salary cap position will get a significant boost for next season following Shibasaki's departure, the move has been in the pipeline for some time and it's believed a chunk of his money may have already been spent elsewhere.

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