Source : the age
By Dan Walsh
Shane Flanagan believes the Dragons are a better side in 2025 for farewelling Ben Hunt and Zac Lomax – the club’s two best and highest-paid players last year.
Along with the Wests Tigers, St George Illawarra have been the most active club at the top end of the player market, recruiting veterans Damien Cook, Clint Gutherson and Valentine Holmes, as well as halfback Lachlan Ilias, the latter trio in the past six months.
Hunt’s acrimonious exit after the Dragons’ fall from finals contention left Flanagan without a captain or recognised No.7 until the signing of Ilias, following on from Lomax’s shift to Parramatta after rising to NSW Origin and Kangaroos honours.
The Dragons still have salary cap space to afford a top-level prop as their next recruitment priority, though the market is distinctly short on established front-rowers after Leo Thompson’s decision to join Canterbury next year.
Hunt’s release from his $950,000 Dragons deal will see a new first-choice halves pairing of Kyle Flanagan and Ilias earn roughly the same figure combined as arguably the NRL’s cheapest scrumbase combination.
Flanagan snr has now spent 18 months reshaping the club’s roster since his appointment and says his side is beginning to reflect his own coaching style, in a similar fashion to his premiership-winning tenure at Cronulla.
King of the mountain: Dragons recruit Clint Gutherson won the race up Mt Keira on day one of pre-season training.Credit: St George Illawarra Dragons
“I’m not going to put the blame on anyone else, but it’s hard in the recruitment phase this year to get players [who play] your style or where you want [positionally],” Flanagan says.
“We were really lucky to get Val, Cookie and Gutho. To get them and then throw Lachie in late, if anyone had lost their captain and halfback when we did, would they recover? Would they still be in a good position? I’m not quite sure.
“I thought our recruitment and retention has been pretty good. We made some tough, big decisions as a club to let Ben go, to let Lomax go in the best interests of the club, not any individual.
“They’re tough decisions. As a coach, I’m selfish when it comes to winning footy games. I don’t care who plays in what team as long as they help me win.
“So there’s some big decisions there that the club were fully supportive of. And I still think we’re a better footy team this year because of the recruits.”
Cook and Gutherson have emerged as obvious captaincy successors to Hunt, and along with Holmes, bring a combined 630 games of NRL experience to the Dragons after all three were released by the previous clubs.
At the other end of the scale, the next crop of Red V juniors is headlined by 19-year-old prop Loko Pasifiki-Tonga – who stands at 196 cm and 121kg and is rated as one of the game’s best emerging forwards.
Flanagan says Pasifiki-Tonga and fellow forwards Dylan Egan, Hamish Stewart and Finau Latu are all capable of making their NRL debuts this season, and says he is more comfortable with blooding new players given the Dragons’ depth in 2025.
“I’m a real believer that you’ve got to have strength and depth above them,” Flanagan says.
“If they play too early sometimes they plateau out. When you put them in they’ve got to be ready to stay in [the NRL].
“You have a look at the Feagai boys [outside backs Max and Mat], Tyrell Sloan, did they play [NRL] too early? I’m not sure, there’s an argument for and an argument against.
“But if you’ve got quality above them and it makes it harder for them to get in there, when they get in there ready to go, it’s a good thing.
“I think we’re in a good position now where we don’t have to push our kids in too early, we push them when they’re ready.”
From NRL’s richest teen to fronting the board: The rocky ride of Latu Fainu
In a fledgling career characterised largely so far by hype and the eye-catching figures of lucrative contracts, the most important number for Latu Fainu is the smallest.
Not the $1.3 million he could have surpassed in earnings when Manly first signed him at 16, on the largest NRL contract signed by a teenager (once performance bonuses were triggered).
Teen tyro: Wests Tiger half Latu Fainu.Credit: Steven Siewert
Or the estimated $2 million he’s slated to earn across his four-year Wests Tigers deal.
For Fainu, it’s the five kilos he’s stripped off his frame since being breached for his sloppy return to pre-season training as he continues to wrestle with the pressure and expectation of all the above.
Alongside teammates Solomona Faataape and Solomone Saukuru, Fainu fronted the Wests Tigers board after missing his weight, skinfold and 1.6 km time trial targets.
Latu Fainu played nine games in his debut NRL season.Credit: NRL Imagery
He spent his Christmas break fronting for 5am hill runs and cardio sessions to ensure he’s back at his playing weight of 88 kilos, and was thankful for some tough love from coach Benji Marshall and Tigers head of performance Peter Moussa.
“It was a massive wake-up call,” Fainu told this masthead. “Coming back in with those extra kilos, I was really disappointed in myself, because I’d let down not just myself, but my family and team as well. I knew I needed to do better.
“Peter Moussa has been massive for me. Throughout the pre-season he’s been hooking into me ever since.
“I was five kilos overweight and I’ve dropped it off now, basically running the whole time. And trust me, I’ve never been a runner.
“Benji’s been great too. Talking to him, it’s so easy and he’ll always tell you straight, which is exactly what he did.”
What Fainu is, thanks to an impressive junior career that prompted investments from Manly and then the Tigers, has been known for quite some time.
An element of notoriety has come with it too for the 19-year-old playmaker given he is the youngest of four Fainu brothers to have played NRL.
Siblings Samuela and Sione are at the Tigers, while eldest brother Manase is serving an eight-year sentence after being convicted of stabbing a Mormon church leader.
Latu freely admits the spotlight has weighed on him at times, particularly when hamstring injuries lingered and delayed his NRL debut last year.
Along with his tight-knit family, former Rooster-turned-Wallabies multi-million dollar recruit Joseph-Aukuso Suaalii has been a welcome sounding board for Fainu.
Joseph-Aukuso Suaalii has helped Fainu deal with the hype and expectation of NRL.Credit: Julius Dimitaga/Rugby Australia
“My first year I felt the pressure to play footy and NRL, mostly from myself,” Fainu said. “I was doubting myself after some hamstring injuries that I was struggling to get right.
“And then it was my headspace where I just couldn’t feel like I was right for NRL and what it was about.
“Joseph Suaalii’s been a big help. He’s spoken to me about how to handle pressure. He’s explained the way he’s tried to keep his head down and tried to just play footy, shut all of it out.
“Talking to him has been a massive help for me. I’ve known him since I was a little kid. We played each other early on in juniors and have known each other for years.
“He’s next level with all the hype and pressure. He’s a smart bloke and I love the way he looks at things and the way he tries to help bring younger guys up, even though he’s only still young himself.
“There’s no ego with him and I think that helps him.”
It’s early days for Fainu, still five months short of his 20th birthday, and the jury is still out on how he, star half Jarome Luai and fellow teen tyro Lachlan Galvin all fit into the same 17.
Ideally though, the Guildford product wants to follow the lead of Marshall, Luai and Suaalii as a leader in Polynesian circles, given their under-representation among coaches and playmakers at rugby league’s top level.
“It’s something I’d like to do. Growing up in Guildford, most kids don’t have much, no one gets anything handed to them,” Fainu said.
“If I can help show kids what they can do and achieve, not necessarily footy, but just in life. Jarome especially for me, you don’t see many Polynesian halves.
“Growing up I didn’t really see any pollies playing half. I looked up to Daly Cherry-Evans. But for the next generation to be looking up to players like Jarome, that’s a big inspiration for me and someone I’d like to like.”
