{"id":166982,"date":"2025-09-25T00:48:08","date_gmt":"2025-09-25T00:48:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/166982\/"},"modified":"2025-09-25T00:48:08","modified_gmt":"2025-09-25T00:48:08","slug":"demetriou-comments-on-lachlan-ilias-london-broncos-recruitment-drive-nrl-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/166982\/","title":{"rendered":"Demetriou comments on Lachlan Ilias, London Broncos’ recruitment drive – NRL News"},"content":{"rendered":"

New London Broncos<\/a> head coach Jason Demetriou<\/a> has revealed his phone has been ringing off the hook with players interested in making a switch to the English Super League<\/a>.<\/p>\n

As part of a new-look and expanded competition, the Broncos are expected to be given a licence to return to the topflight of English rugby league.<\/p>\n

The club, recently acquired by former Brisbane Broncos<\/a> star Darren Lockyer<\/a>, has already appointed former South Sydney Rabbitohs<\/a> coach Jason Demrtriou as its boss for the next three years, and he will now go about setting up a roster for their first campaign.<\/p>\n

They have already been linked to a host of players including out of favour Dragons outside back Tyrell Sloan<\/a> and Titans prop Reagan Campbell-Gillard<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Speaking on SEN Radio, Demetriou revealed he has been receiving plenty of calls from interested parties.<\/p>\n

\u201cI will say this, (my) phone has been nonstop,\u201d Demetriou told SEN 1170 Mornings.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is a lot of interest in players going over there and at the moment, the quota has gone up to ten players.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt’s not going to be too difficult to put a very competitive team together in a short amount of time.<\/p>\n

\u201cConnections through the Kumuls are also going to help in bringing over some potential superstars to the Super League<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

While it’s unclear who the club’s first signing will be, Lockyer recently said that it would make headlines in Australian newspapers when announced, with speculation Tom Trbojevic<\/a> could make the switch.<\/p>\n

Demetriou was also asked about the future of Dragons half Lachlan Ilias<\/a>, who was coached by Demetriou at South Sydney, and spent much of 2025 in reserve grade.<\/p>\n

The coach said a stint in England<\/a> could do Ilias the world of good.<\/p>\n

\u201cI know Lachie (Ilias) has the ambition still to prove himself or stay in the NRL<\/a> and it doesn’t like that opportunity is going to come through the Dragons,\u201d Demetriou said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI’m not sure where he’s at in terms of other suitors but, if not, I don’t think it’s going to hurt him or other young halves like him to go and spend a year or two in the Super League<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt’s been done many times before with a lot of success over the last few years.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think he’d be open to it. He’s obviously represented Greece<\/a>\u2026 I don’t think he’d be averse to the idea of going over there but I know he does have ambitions to play in the NRL<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think he’s shown he’s above NSW cup.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ilias is believed to be open to departing the Dragons given his fall down the club’s pecking order throughout 2025, combined with the looming arrival of Daniel Atkinson<\/a> at the joint-venture from the Cronulla Sharks<\/a> for 2026.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"New London Broncos head coach Jason Demetriou has revealed his phone has been ringing off the hook with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":166983,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,761,762,158,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-166982","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nrl","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-national-rugby-league","11":"tag-nationalrugbyleague","12":"tag-nrl","13":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/166982","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=166982"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/166982\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/166983"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=166982"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=166982"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=166982"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}