{"id":146098,"date":"2025-09-15T23:51:10","date_gmt":"2025-09-15T23:51:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/146098\/"},"modified":"2025-09-15T23:51:10","modified_gmt":"2025-09-15T23:51:10","slug":"ex-dragons-raiders-playmaker-retires-from-rugby-league-nrl-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/146098\/","title":{"rendered":"Ex-Dragons, Raiders playmaker retires from rugby league – NRL News"},"content":{"rendered":"

Josh McCrone<\/a>, a former NRL<\/a> playmaker for the Canberra Raiders<\/a> and St George Illawarra Dragons<\/a>, has decided to hang up the boots on his rugby league career.<\/p>\n

Last playing in the NRL<\/a> in 2017, the 38-year-old appeared in 133 matches for the Raiders (2009-15) before making the move to the Dragons (2016-17), where he would go on to play a further 28 games over two seasons.<\/p>\n

The 2015 NSW Cup<\/a> Five-Eighth of the Year, the three-time Country Origin representative, also spent three seasons overseas with the Toronto Wolfpack<\/a> in the Super League<\/a>, where he scored 43 points in 40 matches.<\/p>\n

Most recently, McCrone has been playing for the Temora Dragons in the Group 9 competition, in which they made the finals before being eliminated by Young Cherrypickers in the minor semi-final.<\/p>\n

“Today’s loss marks the end of a long and successful career for our guy Josh McCrone<\/a>,” a statement from the club read.<\/p>\n

“Josh has been the heart and soul of our club, and will leave a massive hole both on and off the field.<\/p>\n

“It is tough to put into words what he has done for the Dragons.<\/p>\n

“He has been instrumental in the return to finals for our boys, with an emphasis on keeping it local and developing the boys from our junior system.<\/p>\n

“Over the years, Josh has juggled family and football, with 3 out of 4 of his children playing for our Junior Rugby League<\/a> Club.<\/p>\n

“He spends nearly every night at Bob Aldridge coaching the Juniors or at Nixon Park with the seniors, attending both training and game day.<\/p>\n

“You will struggle to find a more dedicated and passionate individual. What an incredible career from an incredible bloke. Thank you, Josh.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Josh McCrone, a former NRL playmaker for the Canberra Raiders and St George Illawarra Dragons, has decided to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":146099,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,760,85],"class_list":["post-146098","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-rugby","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146098","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=146098"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146098\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/146099"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=146098"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=146098"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=146098"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}