{"id":26892,"date":"2025-07-28T06:56:09","date_gmt":"2025-07-28T06:56:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/26892\/"},"modified":"2025-07-28T06:56:09","modified_gmt":"2025-07-28T06:56:09","slug":"nrl-news-2025-lewis-dodd-situation-contract-south-sydney-rabbitohs-wayne-bennett-press-conference-james-and-wade-graham-comments","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/26892\/","title":{"rendered":"NRL news 2025 | Lewis Dodd situation, contract; South Sydney Rabbitohs; Wayne Bennett press conference; James and Wade Graham comments"},"content":{"rendered":"

League great James Graham has described the Lewis Dodd situation<\/a> as “mind-boggling” after the halfback started in the No.7 for the Rabbitohs for the first time on the weekend.<\/p>\n

More than a bint of scepticism surrounded the three-year Dodd deal when he came to the club on $700,000 a season, despite his status as a relative unknown in Australia.<\/p>\n

He was dropped by St Helens to reserve grade in July 2024, adding further intrigue to the situation, despite his winning field-goal against Penrith in the World Club Challenge the year before.<\/p>\n

READ MORE: Whispered two-player chat that left sorry Demons shellshocked<\/a><\/p>\n

READ MORE: Opponent in tears after choke as de Minaur wins miracle title<\/a><\/p>\n

READ MORE: Slater weighs up No.7 switch after Storm gun’s injury<\/a><\/p>\n

Dodd has since played five games for the Rabbitohs despite their injury struggles, and played the full 80 minutes in only one match. He played 68 minutes against the Sharks<\/a> on Saturday.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Lewis Dodd sits on the bench against the Sharks. \u00a0NRL Photos<\/p>\n

Rabbitohs coach Wayne Bennett said Dodd “didn’t let anybody down” when asked post-match. <\/p>\n

Graham put the onus on the decision makers at the club after Dodd was officially announced as a Rabbitohs signing on May 5 last year, just a week after Jason Demetriou was sacked.<\/p>\n

“The Lewis Dodd situation is mind-boggling. Who brokered the deal? And who did that person consult?,” Graham asked on Triple M’s NRL Daily.<\/p>\n

“You’ve got to review that process then and say ‘Well in future, if we’re unsure about our coach, which they clearly were, we’ve got to pause all signings and especially one that is in arguably the most important position on the field and bringing someone who is an unknown in the NRL’.”<\/p>\n

Watch the 2025 NRL premiership live and free on Nine and 9Now<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Graham, who was a teammate of Dodd’s at St Helens in 2020 said he still thinks the halfback “can shine here in the NRL”.<\/p>\n

Sharks premiership winner Wade Graham was also critical of the recruitment team at the Rabbitohs. <\/p>\n

“The Lewis Dodd situation, I struggle to comprehend how they (have handled this), Jason Demetriou was still there when they signed Lewis Dodd then they signed Wayne Bennett, so who’s calling the shots there?,” he asked.<\/p>\n

“Who’s doing the back room deals to get players contracted when you don’t have a coach?<\/p>\n

“Obviously Wayne Bennett wasn’t privy to Lewis Dodd being signed because he hasn’t played him all year, there’s obviously an issue there that he doesn’t see Lewis Dodd as a week in, week out halfback.<\/p>\n

“He’s on a lot of money, so it affects your cap space. There’s a lot of little issues at South Sydney spread across the club that someone needs to take control of and whip it back into shape.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"League great James Graham has described the Lewis Dodd situation as “mind-boggling” after the halfback started in the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":26893,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,761,762,158,85],"class_list":["post-26892","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nrl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-national-rugby-league","tag-nationalrugbyleague","tag-nrl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26892","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=26892"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26892\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26893"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26892"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26892"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26892"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}