{"id":369280,"date":"2025-12-24T17:48:08","date_gmt":"2025-12-24T17:48:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/369280\/"},"modified":"2025-12-24T17:48:08","modified_gmt":"2025-12-24T17:48:08","slug":"getting-to-know-england-winger-dom-young-total-rugby-league","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/369280\/","title":{"rendered":"Getting to know England winger Dom Young \u2013 Total Rugby League"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\n England and Newcastle Knights star Dom Young is next in the hot seat to answer our 20 questions.<\/p>\n

1 How did it feel to get the chance to play in the NRL after making just two Super League appearances?<\/p>\n

It was a bit strange. Growing up, my goal was always to play in Super League, but when the opportunity came to go over to the NRL, even before I kind of established myself in Super League, it was pretty cool. But as soon as I went over there I knew what I wanted to do, so it\u2019s no surprise that I\u2019m where I am now.\u00a0<\/p>\n

2 What was the scariest thing about moving out to Australia as a 19-year-old?<\/p>\n

I had literally just turned 19 when I moved out there so it was just scary. It\u2019s funny to look back on now because I\u2019ve been there for so long, but I think it was just leaving my family behind. I had been living at home with my mum, so going from that to being so far away, the time difference and just knowing how far away from home I was, was quite hard at first. But I managed to get over the homesickness and all that pretty quickly.\u00a0<\/p>\n

3 What do you miss most about the UK when you are over in Australia?<\/p>\n

Just the people \u2013 my family \u2013 and the culture really. I do miss my English food \u2013 which is probably a good thing really because it\u2019s all the unhealthy stuff that I shouldn\u2019t be eating anyway.<\/p>\n

4 On the flip side to that, what do you miss most about Australia when you come back over here?<\/p>\n

I think that\u2019s probably pretty obvious because I always come back October\/November time when the sun\u2019s out and it\u2019s boiling over there, but freezing here. I see people over there posting stories from the beach and I\u2019m in England freezing my backside off but it\u2019s all good.\u00a0<\/p>\n

5 Who was your roommate in the England camp during the Ashes \u2013 and what were they like to share with?<\/p>\n

Usually I\u2019m with Herbie (Farnworth) but I had Kai (Pearce-Paul) this year and it was pretty easy. I was rooming with Kai in Australia anyway so we\u2019re used to it. He\u2019s messy, he\u2019s annoying, he\u2019s all the bad things a roommate should be but we\u2019re good mates so it\u2019s alright I\u2019ll let him off.\u00a0<\/p>\n

6 Who was your rugby league icon growing up?<\/p>\n

When I was really young I always loved Lesley Vainikolo. I was a Bradford fan and always used to watch them from the stands and he was always a guy that I used to love watching. Then when I got a bit older I used to love Jermaine McGillvary and Leroy Cudjoe \u2013 they were the guys I really looked up to \u2013 especially being in Huddersfield as well.<\/p>\n

7 If you could go back in time and see any of the rugby league greats in action at the height of their career, who would it be?<\/p>\n

I\u2019d love to wind the clocks back and see Martin Offiah in the flesh and see just how quick he was. When you see some of his tries and his highlights he was pretty electric so it\u2019d be pretty cool to go back to that.\u00a0<\/p>\n

8 What has been the greatest moment of your career so far?<\/p>\n

To be honest I think all the greatest moments of my career have been in an England shirt. It\u2019s always the highlight of my year coming back home and playing in front of friends and family. I don\u2019t get the opportunity to do too often. But if I picked out a singular moment, it\u2019d either be the try that I scored in the World Cup game against Samoa, or when I scored in the semi-final against Canberra \u2013 the crowd was going berserk because that was one of the craziest games I\u2019ve ever played in.\u00a0<\/p>\n

9 Who is the best musician\/band you have seen perform live?<\/p>\n

I haven\u2019t seen too many live performances to be fair but I\u2019ve seen Stormzy and he was good. It was a while ago and he\u2019s not really released much lately, but at the time I was a big fan of his and it was just a good performance. But I\u2019m not like a big concert guy, I haven\u2019t been to any over in Australia.<\/p>\n

10 If you could be on any celebrity TV or reality TV show, which would it be?<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t know, but I need to find myself a woman so maybe Love Island or something like that. But I\u2019d never do it.<\/p>\n

11 What is your go-to meal?<\/p>\n

I love a good Chinese takeaway, and I could pretty much go for the whole menu.\u00a0<\/p>\n

12 Do you have any hidden talents?<\/p>\n

I am good at chess and a decent player \u2013 does that count?<\/p>\n

13 Where do you see yourself in 20 years\u2019 time?<\/p>\n

Hopefully not working too hard \u2013 I don\u2019t know if the body will allow me to, but hopefully I\u2019ll have a nice family. I don\u2019t know whether I\u2019ll be back home or in Australia but hopefully I will just be settled with a family and have all my important, special people around me.<\/p>\n

14 Who\u2019s the toughest opponent you have faced in your career?\u00a0<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a tough one that because as a winger I can just hide out on my wing when I\u2019m playing against all the big guys, but for best player I\u2019ll go for Herbie Farnworth \u2013 a fellow Englishman. He definitely gives you a few headaches in defence when you have to worry about him coming at you. He\u2019s a good mate of mine, so I\u2019m sure he\u2019ll love me saying that.\u00a0<\/p>\n

15 What\u2019s top of your bucket list?\u00a0<\/p>\n

The rugby bucket list is obviously to win a competition, win a Premiership. Winning a World Cup with England is up there as well and is probably the ultimate goal.\u00a0<\/p>\n

16 If you could attend any other sporting event in the world, which would you choose and why?\u00a0<\/p>\n

I\u2019d love to go to the Olympics, I reckon that would be pretty sick. Watching something like the 100m sprint final would be pretty cool.<\/p>\n

17 Where are you spending Christmas this year \u2013 will it be in cold England or sunny Australia?\u00a0<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, I\u2019ll be back in Australia because I\u2019ll be back in training by then. It\u2019s a bit of a shame really because I do enjoy Christmas back in England. It\u2019s probably the only time of year where I actually quite enjoy being inside in the cold and it being snowy. I still haven\u2019t quite wrapped my head around going down to the beach on Christmas Day \u2013 it doesn\u2019t really sit well with me \u2013 but we make the most of it.<\/p>\n

18 What\u2019s the best Christmas present you\u2019ve ever received?\u00a0<\/p>\n

My parents got me a necklace once, which I still wear every day. It\u2019s a nice little reminder of them. When you feel so far away from them, it\u2019s nice to have that little bit of comfort.\u00a0<\/p>\n

19 Will you be making any New Year\u2019s resolutions?<\/p>\n

Not really, to be honest. I kinda live pretty good anyway, but maybe I\u2019ll cut out a few more of them unhealthy snacks because I\u2019m trying to lean out a little bit for next year \u2013 but we\u2019ll see what happens.<\/p>\n

20 What would you like to achieve on a personal level in 2026?\u00a0<\/p>\n

Just to springboard off the Ashes tests, because I thought I did alright in the two games I played, and take that part of my game with me leading into the season. It was a pretty disappointing 2025 with the Knights, but we\u2019ve got a pretty nice squad together for 2026, so hopefully we can get the ball rolling early and have a good year with them.<\/p>\n

First published in Rugby League World magazine, Issue 516 (January 2026)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"England and Newcastle Knights star Dom Young is next in the hot seat to answer our 20 questions.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":369281,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,760,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-369280","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-rugby","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-rugby","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/369280","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=369280"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/369280\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/369281"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=369280"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=369280"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=369280"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}