After reports that Lewis Dodd is set to leave St Helens and move to the NRL for the 2025 season it’s meant that an NRL half-back has become available for Super League sides to sign.
It was The Daily Telegraph who first reported that Dodd would leave St Helens with the 22-year-old expected to be confirmed as a South Sydney Rabbitohs player in the coming days and weeks.
The NRL giant’s Managing Director Mark Ellison is set to travel to England where he will finalise the deal with Dodd and also look at some other Super League stars reportedly.
As with the transfer cycle, it means that St Helens will have a position to fill and a spare half-back becomes available at Souths, and that man has now been told he’s free to negotiate elsewhere.
That could well see him move to Super League, the second Souths playmaker so far this season to garner attention from teams in England after reports that a number of teams had “shown interest” in Dean Hawkins.
Will Super League sides swoop for exiled NRL star?
Credit: Imago Images
It’s expected that Dodd will walk into the Souths starting 13 and partner Cody Walker which means that incumbent playmaker Lachlan Ilias is out of a starting role.
He could also be out of a job with the latest reports down under being that Illias has been told that he can begin negotiations with other clubs, something that will capture the attention of half-back-needy sides in both the NRL and Super League.
Ilias is just 23-years-old but has already got over 50 NRL games to his name but he seems to be the man axed and thrown under the bus for the Bunnies’ current form. Souths sit at the foot of the NRL table with just one win all season.
The Telegraph understand that Ilias is the man who kicked off negotiations with other NRL clubs with his manager having formally applied for permission to negotiate a deal elsewhere.
That permission has been granted meaning Ilias is on the market and Super League sides would be savvy to look at him and try swoop for him ahead of any NRL prospectors.
Super League sides could offer the 23-year-old a starting role and there’s always the hope that he could become the next Jackson Hastings or Brodie Croft, an young struggling half imported from the NRL who will go on to become a star of Super League and a Man of Steel winner.
Currently, Ilias is recovering from a broken leg but with his contract running down and him and his manager actively seeking new clubs, it’s likely that a number of Super League teams will be making inquiries down under.
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