The Dragons are pleased to announce that Hayden Buchanan been promoted into the club\u2019s NRL squad for the 2026 and 2027 seasons.<\/p>\n
Initially on a development deal, Buchanan\u2019s work during the preseason and early part of the season has earnt the 20-year-old a deserved promotion.<\/p>\n
A Gerringong Lions junior, Buchanan made his Jersey Flegg debut in 2023 when he was just 17 \u2013 the same year he earnt an Australian Schoolboys nod \u2013 before representing the Under 19s Blues a year young the following season.<\/p>\n
He made the leap up to Knock-On Effect NSW Cup in mid-2024 and developed into an integral part of the side the next year earning himself another NSW Under 19s call-up.<\/p>\n
Buchanan made his NRL debut in the side\u2019s Round 23 local derby win last year scoring a try and assisting on another before finishing the year with five NRL caps to his name.<\/p>\n
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\u201cI grew up here, played junior footy here, junior reps. Making my debut last year was really special and I\u2019m looking forward to building on it. We have a great group of players and staff here and we\u2019re on a really exciting journey together.\u201d<\/p>\n
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\u201cI\u2019m stoked to be extending my time here at the Dragons,\u201d Buchanan said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI grew up here, played junior footy here, junior reps. Making my debut last year was really special and I\u2019m looking forward to building on it. We have a great group of players and staff here and we\u2019re on a really exciting journey together.\u201d<\/p>\n
Head Coach Shane Flanagan says Buchanan\u2019s promotion is a result of the Dragons Academy graduate\u2019s continued hard work.<\/p>\n
\u201cHayden\u2019s worked really hard throughout the preseason and deserves this opportunity,\u201d Flanagan said.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s one of our local juniors who has been in our system for a while. He played some NRL towards the back end of last season and showed he has what it takes to compete at that level. He\u2019s a good trainer and a good teammate. We\u2019re looking forward to seeing his continued development over the next few seasons.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Dragons are pleased to announce that Hayden Buchanan been promoted into the club\u2019s NRL squad for the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":543702,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,761,762,158,85],"class_list":["post-543701","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\/543701","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=543701"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/543701\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/543702"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=543701"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=543701"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=543701"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}