{"id":285132,"date":"2025-11-15T01:21:09","date_gmt":"2025-11-15T01:21:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/285132\/"},"modified":"2025-11-15T01:21:09","modified_gmt":"2025-11-15T01:21:09","slug":"never-going-to-make-the-nrl-dragons-youngster-reveals-why-he-departed-nrl-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/285132\/","title":{"rendered":"“Never going to make the NRL”: Dragons youngster reveals why he departed – NRL News"},"content":{"rendered":"

South Sydney Rabbitohs<\/a> recruit Jonah Glover<\/a> has revealed a blocked path to the NRL<\/a> was behind his decision to leave the St George Illawarra Dragons<\/a> during the off-season.<\/p>\n

The halfback spent the entirety of 2025 in the NSW Cup<\/a> where he guided the Dragons’ reserve grade outfit to the grand final, playing alongside Lachlan Ilias<\/a> and Lyhkan King-Togia<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Ilias has now moved to the Gold Coast Titans<\/a>, but King-Togia, Kyle Flanagan<\/a> and recruit Daniel Atkinson<\/a> who arrives from the Cronulla Sharks<\/a> all likely still would have been ahead of Glover, despite his reserve grade form.<\/p>\n

Speaking to The Sydney Morning Herald, he admitted a better chance of making his NRL<\/a> debut was behind the move to South Sydney.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a good year in Cup at the Dragons, I really enjoyed my time, but I felt like I was never going to make the NRL<\/a> at the Dragons, so I moved to the Rabbitohs,\u201d Glover told the publication.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was hard to get a look in. I felt like I played pretty well, but just didn’t get the opportunity to play.<\/p>\n

\u201cHopefully, next year I’ll be able to make a stand and make my NRL<\/a> debut.\u201d<\/p>\n

At South Sydney, Glover will find another challenge for spots.<\/p>\n

Cody Walker<\/a> has been re-signed to play five-eighth for 2026, leaving incumbent Jamie Humphreys<\/a>, impressive youngster Ashton Ward<\/a> and now permanent Rabbitoh Jayden Sullivan<\/a> – another former Dragons junior prodigy – as well as Glover, to fight for a single spot in the number seven jumper.<\/p>\n

Humphreys, given his form throughout an injury-hit 2025 campaign, will likely start with the number seven jumper.<\/p>\n

He was not in the mix for the spot originally, but a strong pre-season, and now departed Lewis Dodd’s struggles, meant he became the first choice for coach Wayne Bennett<\/a> to partner Cody Walker<\/a> in the halves, although the duo rarely played together owing to injuries.<\/p>\n

Glover can play five-eighth as well as halfback and could consider himself a chance at the number six jersey if Walker continues to struggle to stay on the field.<\/p>\n

Glover said being coached by Bennett was another part of the lure to shift to Maroubra.<\/p>\n

\u201cI’m pretty excited,\u201d Glover said. \u201c[Bennett] was actually a pretty big factor because obviously, I’m from Queensland and he was coaching the Queensland side.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was like, \u2018Man, I would love to be coached by him’ and as soon as I heard that it was possible to go to the Rabbitohs, I was like \u2018Where do I sign?'”<\/p>\n

The 22-year-old has played 48 reserve grade games.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"South Sydney Rabbitohs recruit Jonah Glover has revealed a blocked path to the NRL was behind his decision…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":175877,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,761,762,158,85],"class_list":["post-285132","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\/285132","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=285132"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/285132\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/175877"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=285132"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=285132"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=285132"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}