NRL

Sydney Roosters boss speaks out on Dom Young future after NRL move hitch

by
Sian Reed
May 12, 2025

England and NRL winger Dom Young celebrates a try with teammates

England and NRL winger Dom Young’s future is up in the air, following a breakdown of talks for a transfer back to his former club.

Young is currently in his second year of a four-year contract at Sydney Roosters, but having been dropped ahead of round eight three weeks ago, it was looking like the England star could be moving back to his former club, Newcastle Knights.

However, it looks like the teams cannot agree on a deal, and Young’s coach at Sydney, Trent Robinson, has shared his views about the whole situation.

Australian media outlets reported that Young had been told by the Roosters that he was free to leave immediately, but Robinson has shared that it’s not quite the case.

Speaking to Fox League, he said: “To be honest, all that’s been fairly annoying. The way it was sort of put out there was as if we were trying to push him out, which wasn’t the case.

“Newcastle rang us, and having talked to his manager beforehand (who were) trying to get him out when he got dropped, and we said yes, and then they wanted us to pay the whole year, and we went, oh no, if you want him (you pay for him).

“Their chairman said that they had the money to take him now, and so we agreed his management wanted that. And then they’ve backtracked at the end of the week and today, so that’s really annoying.

“If you ask for something, then you stick by it, and they haven’t done that.”

NRL coach supports England international and insists blame lies elsewhere for transfer debacle

Robinson was keen to stress that he doesn’t blame the England winger for any of this and confirmed that there’s no bad blood between them.

He continued: “Dom and I had a good discussion last week when all this happened. We were clear about who instigated it.”Dom hasn’t done anything wrong in all of this either, so it’s been really clear with us, but it’s been an annoying week from our point of view and Dom’s point of view. It’s just not how you do things.”

The Sydney coach stated that the England winger was still contracted to the NRL club and simply lost his place because he’s underperforming right now.

He finished: “There’s no issue. I thought Mark (Nawaqanitawase) was outplaying him. That happens every week in sport around the world. It’s quite simple.

“He’s a starting NRL player, but Mark was playing slightly better, and you make that choice.

“And then things happen behind the scenes a lot in our game, which is quite normal, but it very rarely happens like it’s happened in the last week.

“I think they’re trying to bluff us into it, but we didn’t want it to happen. We didn’t instigate any of this.”