{"id":392707,"date":"2026-01-05T08:10:12","date_gmt":"2026-01-05T08:10:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/392707\/"},"modified":"2026-01-05T08:10:12","modified_gmt":"2026-01-05T08:10:12","slug":"finals-or-bust-flanagan-reveals-expectations-for-dragons-in-2026-nrl-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/392707\/","title":{"rendered":"Finals or bust? Flanagan reveals expectations for Dragons in 2026 – NRL News"},"content":{"rendered":"

The St George Illawarra Dragons<\/a> have come a long way since Shane Flanagan<\/a> took over the lead job in 2024.<\/p>\n

Having lured in stars such as Keaon Koloamatangi<\/a>, Clint Gutherson<\/a>, and Valentine Holmes<\/a>, as well as debuting young stars in Hamish Stewart<\/a>, Toby Couchman<\/a>, and Dylan Egan<\/a>, Flanagan is building a respectable rugby league side that the Red V faithful can be proud of.<\/p>\n

The Dragons haven’t made the finals since 2018, and Flanagan admitted he is committed to building long-term success for the club, while also boasting one of the younger sides in the NRL<\/a>.<\/p>\n

“I feel [like our goal includes] building foundations with some of those young boys to have NRL<\/a> careers \u2014 Hamish Stewart<\/a>, Dylan Egan<\/a>, the Couchman’s, Jacob Halangahu<\/a>,” Flanagan told Zero Tackle.<\/p>\n

\"NRLBRISBANE, AUSTRALIA – MAY 03: Hamish Stewart of the Dragons makes a break during the round nine NRL match between Wests Tigers and St George Illawarra Dragons at Suncorp Stadium, on May 03, 2025, in Brisbane, Australia. (Photo by Hannah Peters\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n

Despite the youth littered throughout the squad, Flanagan declared finals as a major priority heading into 2026.<\/p>\n

“They’re all babies, but they’re playing first grade now, so while it’s building foundations, but we also expect to play finals.”<\/p>\n

The 2016 premiership-winning coach knows what a finals side looks like, and while he highlighted a few similarities between the Cronulla Sharks<\/a> side that one it all and his current one, he acknowledged this Dragons squad is far less experienced.<\/p>\n

“I suppose you could draw a couple of lines [between the 2016 Sharks and the 2026 Dragons], but we probably didn’t have as many young fellas in that \u201816 side,” he admitted.<\/p>\n

“We had the experienced players, but we only had \u2018Val’ and [Jack Bird<\/a> as our youngsters], but this Dragons side has 8-10 young ones.”<\/p>\n

\"CronullaSYDNEY, AUSTRALIA – SEPTEMBER 26: Jack Bird of the Sharks shares a joke with team mate Valentine Holmes during a Cronulla Sharks NRL training session at Southern Cross Group Stadium on September 26, 2016 in Sydney, Australia. (Photo by Brendon Thorne\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n

He doubled down on his main focus, being his young players in 2026, believing that their development is the first step toward finals success for the Dragons.<\/p>\n

“Hopefully our young ones have really breakout seasons, and they excel,” Flanagan said.<\/p>\n

“They’ve been spoken about as future rep players\u2026 I’m excited about the young ones, and with the experience we’ve got, [our veterans] will help guide them.”<\/p>\n

The youth movement is well and truly underway at the Dragons, but the expectations of finals remain.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The St George Illawarra Dragons have come a long way since Shane Flanagan took over the lead job…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":346756,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,761,762,158,85],"class_list":["post-392707","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\/392707","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=392707"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/392707\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/346756"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=392707"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=392707"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=392707"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}