St George Illawarra Dragons have confirmed dummy half Jacob Liddle has been ruled out for the rest of the season with a calf strain.
When Liddle went down in the first half of their Round 25 clash with the Canterbury Bulldogs there were fears he had injured his Achilles.
When speaking with Dragons media, head of performance Dan Lawson revealed the club was initially concerned by the severity of the injury, saying, “It looked pretty bad, we were quite concerned to start off with.”
In an X (formerly known as Twitter) post, Nrl Physio revealed that the non-contact mechanism when pushing up off the line to then turning around to "see who kicked me" motion pointed towards an Achilles injury.
Liddle missed the start of the Dragons' 2026 campaign after suffering a high-grade hamstring injury during pre-season training in January.
The Dragons began the season without any dummy half back-up as reserve grade regular Connor Muhleisen was in rehab for an ACL injury he suffered during the 2025 Knock-On Effect NSW Cup Grand Final.
After making his first appearance for 2026 off the bench in Round 3, Liddle was set to make his first start in Round 7 after a late change by Coach Shane Flanagan at the time.
However, he re-aggravated his hamstring injury in the warm-up which would send him for another stint on the sidelines.
The club have provided an update on the injury with Dan Lawson stating that "the scans were positive, he has a calf strain, not as bad as previously thought."
With the Dragons out of contention for the finals series and the nature of the injury with a three-week turnaround, Liddle won't play for the Red V again in 2026.
Liddle will now set his sights on a strong pre-season where he aims to retain the starting hooking position that he won late on this year with Damien Cook departing the club for the Castleford Tigers on a 2-year-deal at season's end.
Cook will return to the starting role this week as the Dragons take on the Manly Sea Eagles, with Muhleisen being recalled to first grade for the first time since Round 27, 2024 in the no.14 position.
