New to Kayo? Join now and get your first month for just $1.<\/a><\/p>\nNewly appointed halfback Daniel Atkinson and five-eighth Kyle Flanagan each sustained ankle injuries in the Dragons\u2019 at-times promising performance in Wollongong.<\/p>\n
Dragons coach Shane Flanagan revealed the pair were both heavily strapped at half time in a bid to complete the game. With the Dragons now staring down the barrel of three consecutive losses to the 2026, the side will await scans on both players this week.<\/p>\n
\u201cBoth have got bad ankles. They will probably both have to have scans. I watched both tackles, they weren\u2019t hip drops but weight landed on the lower legs and they got swung around,\u201d Flanagan said. \u201cIt\u2019s a bit of a concern\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cBoth of them got treatment at halftime and had to have their ankles strapped. They\u2019re two tough young men and they know how important it is that we don\u2019t lose a half. So they just got on with it.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Dragons\u2019 pre-season has been rife with uncertainty over their long-term halves, with Kyle Flanagan in particular under scrutiny to keep his position at five-eighth.<\/p>\n
Atkinson had some noteworthy touches in the Melbourne match with two try assists, two linebreak assists and 443 kick metres, while Flanagan was occasionally exposed in defence.<\/p>\n
The potential injury crisis could mean St George Illawarra will need to call upon promising junior Kade Reed to occupy one of those playmaking roles. Lyhkan King-Toia is another promising half who has been patiently waiting for his opportunity to step into the first grade side.<\/p>\n
Originally published as Dragons duo set for scans as nightmare start to 2026 gets worse<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"St George Illawarra\u2019s slow start to 2026 could worsen this week as the side awaits scans to both…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":540232,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[5335,64,63,689,4437,36261,2105,96800,1809,118611,27146,7287,647,4466,761,762,673,158,677,668,4583,146122,85,4563,28018,22317,660,4526],"class_list":["post-540231","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nrl","tag-ankle-injuries","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-australia-and-new-zealand","tag-daniel-atkinson","tag-dragons-coach","tag-getty-images-inc","tag-grade-side","tag-injury-crisis","tag-kick-metres","tag-linebreak-assists","tag-mark-nolan","tag-melbourne","tag-melbourne-storm","tag-national-rugby-league","tag-nationalrugbyleague","tag-new-south-wales","tag-nrl","tag-oceania","tag-press-conference","tag-shane-flanagan","tag-slow-start","tag-sports","tag-st-george-illawarra-dragons","tag-storm-superstar","tag-try-assists","tag-victoria","tag-wollongong"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/540231","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=540231"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/540231\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/540232"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=540231"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=540231"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=540231"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}