{"id":550142,"date":"2026-03-19T08:10:23","date_gmt":"2026-03-19T08:10:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/550142\/"},"modified":"2026-03-19T08:10:23","modified_gmt":"2026-03-19T08:10:23","slug":"dragons-forward-taken-to-hospital-after-training-injury","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/550142\/","title":{"rendered":"Dragons forward taken to hospital after training injury"},"content":{"rendered":"

The St George Illawarra Dragons<\/a> have confirmed fringe first-grade forward Loko Pasifiki Tonga<\/a> has been cleared of any serious damage after being taken to hospital for precautionary scans on his neck after a training accident on Thursday.<\/p>\n

Images first surfaced on Thursday at around lunch time of a player being loaded into an ambulance on a spinal board while the remainder of the Dragons’ playing squad looked on.<\/p>\n

The image – taken seemingly from the grandstand – couldn’t clearly identify who the player was.<\/p>\n

The Dragons confirmed that it was forward Loko Pasifiki Tonga<\/a>; and provided a secondary update in the mid-afternoon to confirm the forward was back in the care of Dragons’ medical staff, with scans clearing him of any major damage.<\/p>\n

“The Dragons can confirm that following scans, Loko Pasifiki Tonga<\/a> has been cleared of any major neck injury concerns and returned to the Dragons training facility this afternoon,” the club wrote.<\/p>\n

“He will be monitored by our medical staff over the coming days before a determination is made on his availability to play this weekend. <\/p>\n

Pasifiki Tonga<\/a>, who debuted in 2025 and is touted as one of the best young forwards in the game, has missed selection for the Dragons’ opening games of the season.<\/p>\n

It has led to some speculation regarding his future at the club, with the forward reportedly frustrated over a lack of game time in the top grade.<\/p>\n

He has kicked off the season in reserve grade, where he played 41 minutes against the Bulldogs, running for 96 metres, and scored a try to go with 188 metres in a heavy win over the Melbourne Storm<\/a> in Round 2.<\/p>\n

He was named to start in reserve grade again this weekend against the Parramatta Eels<\/a>, and may still play.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The St George Illawarra Dragons have confirmed fringe first-grade forward Loko Pasifiki Tonga has been cleared of any…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":463091,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,761,762,158,85],"class_list":["post-550142","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\/550142","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=550142"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/550142\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/463091"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=550142"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=550142"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=550142"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}