The St George Illawarra Dragons scored one of their greatest recruitment wins in their club's history this off-season, with Zero Tackle learning Keaon Koloamatangi would be joining the Red V from 2027.
While securing the services of the South Sydney Rabbitohs enforcer is a huge success, Dragons head coach Shane Flanagan isn't done yet.
Speaking to Zero Tackle, Flanagan discussed the Dragons' recruitment plans moving forward, first acknowledging the club's needs for the 2026 season.
“We've only got 25 or 26 players signed out of our top 30, so we're still looking to strengthen that up,” Flanagan admitted.
“But it is hard at the moment, there's no elite-type players on the open market, so we'll have to look at what players are available for [2027 and 2028].”
The premiership-winning coach went on to reveal the positions that he is currently looking to fill moving forward.
“We'll hopefully sign a middle forward, a back and a half,” he said of the Dragons recruitment wishlist.
Recruitment has been a struggle for the Dragons in recent years, but Flanagan declared the club will not just sign anyone for the sake of it.
“[Signing players] is not the problem,” Flanagan said.
“We know what we have to fix up, but it's just hard to find better players than we've got at the moment.
“We'll just have to keep chipping away and hopefully our young ones overachieve [so] we don't have to go looking outside our own backyard.”
The club has since ticked off their goal of signing a middle forward, and will now look to bring in a half and an outside back ahead of the 2027 season.
“We’ll hopefully sign a middle forward, a back and a half,” he said of the Dragons recruitment wishlist.
So…. does that mean that Kyle Flanagan is due for replacement in the halves ?
Will they move him elsewhere, or will Flanagan senior suggest that junior looks for a new club ?
My guess is that he will be pencilled in as a lock or as a potential Damien Cooke replacement when DC hangs up his boots.