{"id":923931,"date":"2026-10-11T06:24:14","date_gmt":"2026-10-11T06:24:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/923931\/"},"modified":"2026-10-11T06:24:14","modified_gmt":"2026-10-11T06:24:14","slug":"dean-young-appoints-two-new-coaches-on-dragons-staff","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/923931\/","title":{"rendered":"Dean Young appoints two new coaches on Dragons staff"},"content":{"rendered":"

The St George Illawarra Dragons<\/a> are close to finalising their coaching staff, with Dean Young<\/a> appointing two new coaches alongside him for the 2027 season.<\/p>\n

Reports in recent weeks indicated Young wanted former teammate Nathan Fien<\/a> to be his assistant coach.<\/p>\n

Fien has been an assistant coach for the Dolphins<\/a>, helping shape one of the league’s best attacking sides.<\/p>\n

Related Coverage<\/p>\n

The Dolphins<\/a> signed Fien to their coaching staff ahead of the club’s inaugural season under Wayne Bennett.<\/a><\/p>\n

The former NRL<\/a> player has since helped create the NRL’s best attacking side in 2025 and fourth-best in 2026.<\/p>\n

This season, the Redcliffe-based side made a run to the preliminary final in the club’s first finals campaign.<\/p>\n

In a new report from The Daily Telegraph, Fien has recently decided to leave the Queensland-based club to become Young’s right-hand man.<\/p>\n

Young’s staff will also include Cronulla Sharks<\/a> pathways coach Dave Howlett.<\/p>\n

Howlett, who heads Endeavour Sports High’s rugby league program, will be a veteran voice as Dean Young<\/a> experiences his first full season as an NRL<\/a> coach.<\/p>\n

Many in the rugby league world view Howlett in a positive manner, gaining a reputation as a greatly respected communicator.<\/p>\n

The Red V averaged 16 points per game, and in major attacking stats, the club ranked the worst across the competition.<\/p>\n

Heading into the 2027 season, Scott Drinkwater<\/a>, Keaon Koloamatangi<\/a>, Luke Metcalf<\/a>, Connor Watson<\/a>, Phillip Sami<\/a> and Kodi Nikorima<\/a> will join the Dragons after a massive roster overhaul, which is expected to continue when the November 1 free agency window begins.<\/p>\n

Young, with a better roster, will approach his first pre-season as the full-time Dragons coach, with not only more talent and experience, but also further developing a current crop of young players for the future, having extended Ryan Couchman<\/a> and Toby Couchman<\/a>, Dylan Egan<\/a>, Jacob Halangahu<\/a>, Loko Pasifiki Tonga<\/a>,\u00a0Hamish Stewart<\/a> and Jacob Webster<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Hamish Stewart<\/a> won the Dally M Second Rower of the Year alongside Manly Sea Eagles<\/a> star Haumole Olakau’atu<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Willie Talau, who replaced Michael Ennis<\/a> during the year, will coach the Dragons’ NSW Cup<\/a> side, and Tom Eisenhuth<\/a> will coach the Steelers’ SG Ball side.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The St George Illawarra Dragons are close to finalising their coaching staff, with Dean Young appointing two new…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":923932,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,761,762,158,85],"class_list":["post-923931","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\/923931","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=923931"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/923931\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/923932"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=923931"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=923931"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=923931"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}