{"id":292829,"date":"2025-11-18T15:16:18","date_gmt":"2025-11-18T15:16:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/292829\/"},"modified":"2025-11-18T15:16:18","modified_gmt":"2025-11-18T15:16:18","slug":"exclusive-explosive-young-dolphin-signs-with-queensland-rivals-nrl-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/292829\/","title":{"rendered":"EXCLUSIVE: Explosive young Dolphin signs with Queensland rivals – NRL News"},"content":{"rendered":"

One of the best young and up-and-coming forwards at The Dolphins<\/a> has inked a deal with one of the club’s biggest rivals in what is set to be a significant signing coup.<\/p>\n

Two years after being poached by The Dolphins<\/a> from the St George Illawarra Dragons’ pathways system, multiple sources have told Zero Tackle\u00a0and Dolphins NRL 4020 News<\/a>\u00a0that James Walsh<\/a> has signed a deal with the North Queensland Cowboys<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The club has since confirmed that he has agreed to a three-year contract, running until the end of the 2028 NRL<\/a> season.<\/p>\n

An explosive back-rower with plenty of potential, Walsh was a member of the Dolphins’ Top 30 roster during the 2025 NRL<\/a> season and has already racked up an impressive highlight reel with his incredible ball-running skills and hard defensive effort.<\/p>\n

Although he has yet to register a single first-grade match, the Lismore-born youngster who can also play in the centres has made 30 QLD Cup<\/a> appearances for the Redcliffe Dolphins<\/a>, with more than half of those coming during this year’s campaign.<\/p>\n

In 16 matches, he scored eight tries, made ten line-breaks and four line-break assists, and was in over 230 tackles at an efficiency rate of 83.7 per cent, as well as averaging nearly 100 running metres per game.<\/p>\n

\u201cJames is a fantastic young player who can play centre and back row, which is valuable in today’s game,\u201d Cowboys Recruitment and List Manager Clint Zammit said.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe is an aggressive ball-runner and natural competitor, who played in successful junior teams in NSW and progressed to play Queensland Cup at 18 for The Dolphins<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe believe James will be a valuable addition to our squad and we are excited to watch his progression in North Queensland.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"One of the best young and up-and-coming forwards at The Dolphins has inked a deal with one of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":292830,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,761,762,158,85],"class_list":["post-292829","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\/292829","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=292829"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/292829\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/292830"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=292829"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=292829"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=292829"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}