The St George-Illawarra Dragons season was one accompanied by a familiar soundtrack – poor results, coaching pressure, scrutiny, and even their own fans turning against them at times.
But amid the turbulence, one player emerged as one of the club's quiet constants. A winger whose rise has been shaped as much by sacrifice as performance – Setu Tu.
Tu arrived at the Red V after a standout 2025 campaign with the Warriors' NSW Cup side, where he scored 13 tries in 14 appearances and played a key role in their NSW Cup and State Championship triumphs.
The 27-year-old has now crossed the chalk 10 times in 18 games for the Dragons in an incredible season to date. His 76th minute try against the Sharks in Round 23 was pure statement stuff – brushing off Mawene Hiroti with ease and then hitting the gas to seal the match against a top four side was a pearler, and a sharp reminder of exactly what he can do.
Tu's rise at the Dragons has been anything but routine, and that's exactly what makes his story so compelling. He initially started his journey at St George on a humble train-and-trial deal with a promotion to the Dragons Top 30 set for 2027.
However, his timeline didn't just shift, it accelerated forward, with the club elevating him into the Top 30 before June 30, months ahead of schedule. It was the clearest possible endorsement of the impact he's made since his first-grade debut against the Bulldogs in Vegas – a debut that lit the fuse on his rapid ascent.
Tu's future might look a little more settled now with his future locked in; but it hasn't always been that way.
Long before he emerged as one of the few bright spots in a tough Dragons campaign, Tu knew exactly what uncertainty felt like. When he crossed the ditch in late 2025, he did it alone, leaving his wife and children in New Zealand for months while he chased an NRL dream with no guarantees attached.
And it wasn't the first time he'd taken that gamble. Before linking again with the Warriors in early 2025, Tu had moved to Melbourne on a train-and-trial deal with the Storm, again without his family, and again unsure if he'd earn a contract. Then came the passing of his stepfather, followed by news his wife was pregnant.
With his future unclear and his family needing him, Tu had no choice but to return home to Auckland.
The Warriors eventually threw him a lifeline, allowing him to keep his career alive. But Tu admits the constant uncertainty, living between contracts, months away from family, took a real toll on him.
“It was pretty tough at the start at my time with the Dragons, having to move away from home and leaving the wife and kids in New Zealand for three or four months,” Tu told Zero Tackle.
“I didn't see them until Christmas and then again before March. On top of that I had to learn a new system at the Dragons. Everything was new and different, and I admit it was challenging. But I feel like I adapted to it all pretty well in the end which allowed me to train well and have a good pre-season.”
That strong pre-season didn't just put Tu on the radar – it propelled him straight into the spotlight. It earned him the shock call-up for his NRL debut in Las Vegas, a moment he admits caught him completely off guard.
“I wasn't expecting a call-up so quickly,” Tu said.
“After a pretty good preseason, I was confident I would play first-grade at some point, but I wasn't expecting it in Round One. I actually only found out a week before we flew over to Vegas.
"Coach wanted to give me a heads up to prepare as this was going to be a massive game for us. He told me, being in Vegas, there was going to be a lot of distractions. So, already having to deal with my family being away from me, I really had to mentally prepare for that game. Again, it wasn't easy, but I got through it. And Vegas was a great experience.”
On top of the strain of being away from his family, Tu, like every Dragons player, has had to battle the relentless noise that has come with poor results and rising scrutiny. It's been a constant backdrop to the Dragons' season and drowning it out has taken real work. But Tu said his time at the Warriors taught him how to shut out the distractions.
“[The noise] has impacted me at times, I'm not going to lie,” Tu said.
“Obviously, a lot of the results haven't been going our way this season which has caused an uproar. But the boys have been digging deep each week to find those wins. Individually, I believe everything's going well for me, so I have been able to block the noise out in the end, and a big reason for that is what I learnt from my time at the Warriors.
“[The Warriors] would go through a little period of this and that, and then a lot of noise would follow, and to block out that noise you need good people around you.
"Going home there would always be family members asking me what's going on but I was taught at the Warriors to avoid those conversations as much as I could and just leave work where it is. Not taking work home, really helped me block out that noise.
"Also, we had a good group of boys with a lot of experience who had gone through a lot of noise at different stages of their career, so they helped us a lot too.”
One of those brutal low points to hit the Dragons as a result from all the losses was when the club pulled the pin on former head coach Shane Flanagan.
While Flanagan may no longer be with the Dragons, Tu made it clear to Zero Tackle that he and the rest of the squad stood firmly behind their coaches – past and present – when asked if he and the players had their coaches' back, insisting it was unfair for all the criticism to land squarely on the coach's shoulders.
“100 percent. I guess it's all on us. I feel like it's our fault for putting that pressure on the coaching staff. They're not the ones who are playing footy out there, it's the players. We're still having good positive chats. Obviously, we're not always getting the results, but we are trying hard each week, and we just want to go out there and win for the coaches and the club," he said.
Asked if he felt any disappointment towards the Warriors for not extending him after a breakout 2025; Tu said he no ill-feelings towards his former club who he said were transparent with him from the start.
“No, not really, because the club were always clear with me about my situation,” Tu said.
“I had a good start to the 2024 season, but they told me they were going to focus on their younger boys, so that's when I went over to Melbourne. But after everything that happened (stepfather passing & wife carrying), I had to put my family first and move back.
“And then the Warriors reached out to me knowing my situation and asked me if I wanted to come in. For them to give me an opportunity after telling me they were already going to move on, was great. I had a clear chat with the coaching staff, because I did ask them what happens if I play well.
Would I keep my spot? There were some hard conversations, but again, they said they wanted to develop their younger boys, so I was all good with that.
So, heads up to them for giving me that early chat before I rejoined them, because it helped my focus when I came back to the team. It meant I wasn't going in to try and take over. Obviously, that's what you want, but at the same time you've got to adapt to the business side of what they want to do.
So, when I came back, I was clear with my role. They loved how I brought the energy around the boys, but I was so happy to get the opportunity to play in the (NSW Cup) final because there were some of the fulltime/first-grade boys who could have played but they looked at me and what I brought to the team.
“Obviously, I would have loved to have played NRL with the Warriors, but God works in different ways, and it's worked pretty well here, so I'm happy.”
Tu's road to first grade has never followed the narrative most players take, and that's become part of his story. The contract uncertainty, months spent away from family, the personal heartbreak he carried with him – none of it stopped him from carving out a place at the Dragons.
In the final weeks of the season he was a somewhat surprise inclusion on the Dragons bench, but in a season where bright spots have been hard to come by, anyone watching will know Setu Tu has been one of the few consistently shining through for St George-Illawarra, grabbing his opportunity with both hands and refusing to fade into the background.
