{"id":917915,"date":"2026-10-06T07:36:11","date_gmt":"2026-10-06T07:36:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/917915\/"},"modified":"2026-10-06T07:36:11","modified_gmt":"2026-10-06T07:36:11","slug":"departing-panther-confirms-new-nrl-club-for-2027","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/917915\/","title":{"rendered":"Departing Panther confirms new NRL club for 2027"},"content":{"rendered":"

Penrith Panthers<\/a> rake Freddy Lussick<\/a> has confirmed he will join the Canterbury Bulldogs<\/a> for the next two seasons.<\/p>\n

In has been one of the game’s worst-kept secrets.<\/p>\n

Lussick was signed as Mitch Kenny’s back-up and wound up playing an enormous role at the foot of the mountains in 2026 with\u00a0Kenny<\/a> missing much of the season injured.<\/p>\n

That put Lussick firmly in the shop window given his one-year contract which was signed following his departure from the New Zealand Warriors<\/a> where he had been the back-up to Wayde Egan<\/a>.<\/p>\n

A talented dummy half, Lussick could be in line to start at Belmore.<\/p>\n

The Bulldogs spent much of 2026 looking for the right combination, ultimately using Kurt Mann<\/a> to start a handful of games when it became evident Bailey Hayward<\/a> wasn’t handling playing big minutes each week.<\/p>\n

The dummy half role, which had been Reed Mahoney’s up till the end of 2025 at the Bulldogs, is a critical one to the way they play, and the energy and spark Lussick brings will be a boost for the club.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe recognised that we needed more depth at hooker and Freddy fills that void perfectly,” Bulldogs head of football Phil Gould said of his signing.<\/p>\n

\"NRLNEWCASTLE, AUSTRALIA – MAY 31: General Manager of the Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs and channel nine commentator Phil Gould during the round 13 NRL match between Newcastle Knights and Canterbury Bulldogs at McDonald Jones Stadium, on May 31, 2024, in Newcastle, Australia. (Photo by Scott Gardiner\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n

He’s a specialist hooker and will bring valuable experience to the squad.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lussick, who will be a Bulldog through to the end of 2028, has 80 NRL<\/a> games under his belt having also played with the Sydney Roosters<\/a> and St George Illawarra Dragons<\/a> prior to crossing the Tasman where he joined the Warriors.<\/p>\n

Twenty of those games came in 2026, where he scored four tries and made 34 tackles per game.<\/p>\n

Lussick will officially link up with the Bulldogs in November. The announcements of Jesse McLean<\/a>, from Penrith, and young fullback Connor Votano<\/a>, are also imminent.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Penrith Panthers rake Freddy Lussick has confirmed he will join the Canterbury Bulldogs for the next two seasons.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":917916,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,761,762,158,85],"class_list":["post-917915","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\/917915","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=917915"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/917915\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/917916"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=917915"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=917915"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=917915"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}