{"id":374755,"date":"2025-12-27T17:58:21","date_gmt":"2025-12-27T17:58:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/374755\/"},"modified":"2025-12-27T17:58:21","modified_gmt":"2025-12-27T17:58:21","slug":"flanagan-reveals-timelines-for-injured-dragons-to-return-nrl-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/374755\/","title":{"rendered":"Flanagan reveals timelines for injured Dragons to return – NRL News"},"content":{"rendered":"

The St George Illawarra Dragons<\/a> were riddled with injury in 2025, finishing as the second unhealthiest team in the NRL<\/a> behind the South Sydney Rabbitohs<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Head coach Shane Flanagan<\/a> is hoping for a much healthier 2026 campaign, and is gearing up for a couple key returns in the first half of the season.<\/p>\n

Breakout star Dylan Egan<\/a> and rugby-convert Nathan Lawson<\/a> were both hit with injuries in 2025, adding to a nasty injury toll for the Dragons.<\/p>\n

Flanagan has lifted the lid on when the pair are due back, which is sure to excite the Red V faithful.<\/p>\n

\u201cDylan Egan<\/a>, he won’t be back until about Round 10,\u201d Flanagan told Zero Tackle.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe did an ACL.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"NRLSYDNEY, AUSTRALIA – APRIL 17: Dylan Egan of the Dragons is tackled during the round seven NRL match between Manly Sea Eagles and St George Illawarra Dragons at 4 Pines Park on April 17, 2025, in Sydney, Australia. (Photo by Cameron Spencer\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n

He also provided an update on Lawson, the 26-year-old former rugby star, who is also expected to miss a couple of games in 2026.<\/p>\n

\u201cNathan Lawson<\/a> just had some screws removed from his foot,\u201d Flanagan revealed.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe’s probably [due back] Round 2 or Round 3.\u201d <\/p>\n

The Dragons coach admitted the club’s awful run of injury was too much to overcome in 2025.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had a terrible amount of injuries last year\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe lost [Ryan Couchman<\/a>] for the whole year, [Toby Couchman<\/a>] went for half the year.<\/p>\n

\u201c[Valentine Holmes<\/a>] was out for half the year, Jaydn Sua missed most of the year\u2026 we had eight to 10 players that would have been first picked in our team that were out injured for long periods of time.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"NRLSYDNEY, AUSTRALIA – MARCH 08: Valentine Holmes of the Dragons warms up during the round one NRL match between St George Illawarra Dragons and Canterbury Bulldogs at Netstrata Jubilee Stadium, on March 08, 2025, in Sydney, Australia. (Photo by Mark Metcalfe\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n

While he acknowledged that \u201ca lot of clubs\u201d deal with players bad injury runs, he admitted \u201cyou can’t win comps if you don’t have your players available.\u201d<\/p>\n

The return dates for the exciting duo is sure to instil hope in many Dragons buffs, who are hoping for a healthier 2026 campaign.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The St George Illawarra Dragons were riddled with injury in 2025, finishing as the second unhealthiest team in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":374756,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,761,762,158,85],"class_list":["post-374755","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\/374755","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=374755"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/374755\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/374756"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=374755"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=374755"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=374755"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}