{"id":299093,"date":"2025-11-21T10:53:18","date_gmt":"2025-11-21T10:53:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/299093\/"},"modified":"2025-11-21T10:53:18","modified_gmt":"2025-11-21T10:53:18","slug":"flanagan-reveals-how-dragons-will-improve-identifies-likely-halves-for-2026-nrl-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/299093\/","title":{"rendered":"Flanagan reveals how Dragons will improve, identifies likely halves for 2026 – NRL News"},"content":{"rendered":"

St George Illawarra Dragons<\/a> head coach Shane Flanagan<\/a> has revealed exactly how he believes his side will turn things around in 2026.<\/p>\n

Flanagan’s outfit are widely tipped to again struggle in 2026, after finishing 15th in 2025.<\/p>\n

That doesn’t tell the whole picture though, with the Red V having an enormous injury toll and losing ten games by less than points.<\/p>\n

Flanagan though acknowledged his side’s attack must improve, and told News Corp he will encourage his playing group to take more risks on the field.<\/p>\n

\u201cTaking more risks is something we will encourage this year. We score one more try per game and we’re in the top eight,\u201d Flanagan told the St publication.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf something is on then they need to be able to back themselves. We play a bit of eyes-up footy but we can sometimes be a bit conservative about completing our sets.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Dragons have plenty of questions to answer heading into the new campaign, and none may be more important than the make-up of their halves.<\/p>\n

Kyle Flanagan<\/a> – Shane’s son – spent the entirety of 2025 in first-grade despite the squad’s attacking issues, while Lachlan Ilias<\/a> languished in reserve grade.<\/p>\n

Ilias is now at the Gold Coast Titans<\/a>, while his replacement throughout 2025 in the NRL<\/a> side, Lyhkan King-Togia<\/a>, remains at the club.<\/p>\n

The arrival of Daniel Atkinson<\/a> – who is tipped to play the number seven for the Red V – adds to the equation.<\/p>\n

In the clearest sign yet that Kyle Flanagan’s role is under pressure though, coach and father Shane admitted his son needed to improve.<\/p>\n

\u201cAtkinson will get the first crack at seven,\u201d Flanagan said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe will slot him in and see how the combination works with Kyle. Kyle has been good for the last two years and only missed a couple of games through suspension.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut he probably needs to evolve his attacking game, play with a bit more risk and chance his arm a little bit more.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need to get the ball to where our strike is \u2013 Val Holmes, Moses Suli<\/a>, Clint Gutherson<\/a>, our outside backs. We need to get the ball to players in space.<\/p>\n

\u201cKyle and Daniel are both really consistent footballers with good kicking games but we need to get more out of them offensively.”<\/p>\n

The Dragons will open their season against the Canterbury Bulldogs<\/a> in Las Vegas.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"St George Illawarra Dragons head coach Shane Flanagan has revealed exactly how he believes his side will turn…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":299094,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,761,762,158,85],"class_list":["post-299093","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\/299093","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=299093"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299093\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/299094"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=299093"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=299093"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=299093"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}