The roller coaster career of former Newcastle Knight Jackson Hastings has taken its latest turn, with one of Super League\u2019s biggest clubs confirming the 29-year-old playmaker is returning to the north of England in 2026.<\/p>\n
Despite previously indicating he wanted to remain in Australia<\/a>\u2014and being linked to several clubs including the Canberra Raiders<\/a>\u2014Hastings has instead signed a one-year deal with St. Helens Saints, who finished fifth in the 2025 season and were eliminated by eventual Super League champions Hull KR in the finals.<\/p>\n In the official announcement<\/a> from St. Helens, the Australian-born former British international said he was excited to start a new chapter.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m just buzzing to get over \u2026 I\u2019ve got a young family now, my partner\u2019s English, and it\u2019ll be great for my daughter to meet that side of the family and experience the English culture that\u2019s in my blood,\u201d Hastings said.<\/p>\n MORE:\u00a0Reece Walsh vs Broncos\u2014star misses 2026 line-up following royalties, IP concerns<\/a><\/p>\n Unsurprisingly, St. Helens coach Paul Rowley\u00a0returned the love.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m really pleased to welcome Jackson to the Saints,\u00a0I am very confident we have added a fantastic and highly motivated player to this great group of players,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Jackson Hastings\u2014a career of highs and lows<\/p>\n Hastings began his NRL career when he burst on to the scene with Sydney Roosters<\/a> in 2014, however inconsistency and disciplinary problems ultimately saw him released from the final year of his three-year contact.<\/p>\n He then linked with the Sea Eagles<\/a> in 2017 but his time at the club was again marred by off-field issues including a widely-reported falling out with then head coach\u00a0Trent Barrett and senior playmaker Daly Cherry-Evans.<\/p>\n From the northern beaches Hastings\u2019 next move was to the north of England where he played 87 games for Salford and Wigan between 2018 and 2021, and was named Super League\u00a0\u2018Man of Steel\u2019 in 2019.<\/p>\n Thrown a two-year NRL lifeline by the Wests Tigers<\/a> in 2022, but released after one season, Hastings ultimately signed with the Knights<\/a> where he spent the past three years under Adam O\u2019Brien.<\/p>\n Hastings appeared just five times in first-grade for Newcastle in 2025 and was not offered a new contract for 2026.<\/p>\n Born in Wollongong, Hastings is of English decent through his grandmother and played four matches for Great Britain in 2019.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The roller coaster career of former Newcastle Knight Jackson Hastings has taken its latest turn, with one of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":299679,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,761,762,158,85],"class_list":["post-299678","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\/299678","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=299678"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299678\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/299679"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=299678"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=299678"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=299678"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}