Bulldogs confirm Lachlan Galvin call as Eels drop superstar Dylan Brown
It came on a huge day for NRL team news, with Taylan May named in the Wests Tigers' backline for the first time and Dylan Brown dropped by Parramatta.
But the biggest shock of all came out of Belmore, with regular starting halfback Toby Sexton dropped to NSW Cup to make room for Galvin.
It means Galvin will start alongside Matt Burton for the first time on Saturday against St George Illawarra, one month after the teen arrived from Wests Tigers.
Galvin was dropped from the team to face North Queensland last week, after coming off the bench twice and starting alongside Sexton in Origin-impacted rounds since his arrival.
'There is still a third of the season left,' Canterbury utility Jaeman Salmon said.
'That's plenty of time to build a combination headed into the finals. So as long as we all get around him, he'll be fine.'
Sexton had been part of the Bulldogs' rise to the top of the ladder, but has now been squeezed out by Galvin.
Off contract at the end of the season, Sexton is also set for an English Super League move next year.
'Obviously you check on Toby,' second-rower Jacob Preston said.
'He is a great person who has a team-first mentality. You always feel for your mates but it is rugby league and that's just what it is.
'He was down here today ripping in for the (NSW Cup) side and wants to get better.'
Elsewhere, the Eels have dropped Brown to 18th man for their match against Canberra, with Ryley Smith's return from suspension squeezing out the Newcastle-bound star.
Coach Jason Ryles has made no secret of his desire to plan for the future, with Joash Papalii a potential long-term No.6 and Tallyn da Silva and Smith the hookers.
At the Tigers, May will play his first NRL game since early last year, after impressing with a hat-trick in NSW Cup for the joint-venture.
His return at centre comes after he was handed a lifeline by the Tigers following domestic-violence charges last year while at Penrith.
May had pleaded not guilty to the charges and they were dropped when his wife - whom he was accused of punching - did not show up in court.
He has since spent time in a mental-health facility.
Chad Townsend is the preferred option to partner Sam Walker at the Sydney Roosters with Hugo Savala injured, despite Sandon Smith being named on an extended bench in the squad to face Cronulla.
Penrith have rested Nathan Cleary and Isaah Yeo for their match against South Sydney, with Dylan Edwards and Brian To'o returning.
Souths have named Lewis Dodd on the bench, while keeping Jack Wighton at five-eighth.
And Manly have opted to keep Tom Trbojevic at centre and Lehi Hopoate at fullback against a Melbourne side who remain without Ryan Papenhuyzen and are yet to decide if Cameron Munster will play.
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News.com.au
3 hours ago
- News.com.au
Eels playmaker's snub is biggest slap in the face for Newcastle
Newcastle has been dealt another black eye with reports Dylan Brown turned down an opportunity to join the club early last month. With the club in crisis following revelations Kalyn Ponga is exploring a move to overseas rugby, the latest news about the Eels playmaker is the last thing the club needed. As revealed by Code Sport on Tuesday, Brown was told Parramatta would not stand in his way if he wanted to join the Knights early before he June 30 deadline. FOX LEAGUE, available on Kayo Sports, is the only place to watch every game of every round in the 2025 NRL Telstra Premiership, LIVE with no ad-breaks during play. New to Kayo? Get your first month for just $1. Limited-time offer. With a 10-year deal reportedly worth around $13m on the table, Brown and Ponga are the one-two punch the club has gambled its future on. Now it appears neither of them want to be there. The staggering report from Code Sports, suggests Brown elected to remain in the Blue and Yellow colours even after being informed by Eels coach Jason Ryles he would be dropped to play in NSW Cup this season. With the Eels' 2025 campaign already in tatters, Ryles has reportedly been given the green light from the front office to shake things up and test junior talent Joash Papalii in the halves alongside Dean Hawkins before Mitchell Moses returns from a calf muscle injury. Brown was moved to hooker during the club's loss to the Panthers and has been dropped for their clash with the Raiders in Canberra on Saturday. This is the decision Brown made when he had the option of starting his new life in Newcastle on the front foot. Brown's decision has left some NRL commentators staggered. Leading NRL journalist Andrew Webster said on the Off The Record podcast there has been a lot of angst from former players at the Knights about the fat contract given to Brown. 'I've been told Parramatta were prepared to let Dylan Brown go to Newcastle early,' Webster said. 'Even telling him that he would be playing NSW Cup. And he preferred to stay.' Webster went on to say: 'Don't you think it says more that he didn't go? He had the opportunity to go there and there's so many questions.' Ryles told Code Sports there is no lingering resentment between himself and Brown with both parties understanding they are on different paths. It makes Brown's decision to remain with the club for the next three months even more staggering. Brown's apparent disinterest in the Knights is another public relations nightmare for a club that is already facing reports coach Adam O'Brien is circling the drain and Ponga is looking for the exit sign. Knights centre Bradman Best was on Tuesday left to be the person answering all the tough questions from reporters after the Ponga bombshell dropped on Monday. Best said hasn't heard anything definitive from Ponga or O'Brien. Ponga still has two years left on his deal, but reports suggest the injured skipper has linked up with a New Zealand rugby agent to scour the market for a potential code switch. The Maroons fullback joined the club in 2018, and while they've made finals in four of the past five seasons, they've never threatened for a title since he's been there. Scoring points has been a major issue for the Knights, with Brown's arrival next year on huge money meant to sort out those issues. Fairly or unfairly, Brown's decision to see out his season with the Eels also does not reflect well on O'Brien when the coach is fighting to save his job. They are just one win above the bottom-placed Titans and have scored the fewest points in the competition with a stack of changes in the halves over the past two years. The news about Ponga's itchy feet must also be difficult for Brown to hear. The opportunity to play with one of the best players in the game was one of the biggest selling points the club had to get Brown to sign on the bottom line. NRL legend Cameron Smith on Monday night said: 'I'm sure he (Ponga) was a big reason why he'd want to move to Newcastle. 'One would've been the money, but two when you're playing with one of the best talents in the game.' Responding on Channel 9's 100% Footy, Phil Gould said: 'I'm sure that (playing with Ponga) would have been raised with Dylan when they tried to sign him.' If the Knights weren't in crisis before, they are now.
News.com.au
5 hours ago
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‘Wouldn't return calls': All Blacks twist in Ponga exit saga amid Roosters rumblings
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5 hours ago
- ABC News
Paul Gallen and Sonny Bill Williams meet in the boxing ring, but does it matter if it doesn't mean anything?
Instances of two former footy players in their 40s punching on is rarely cause for celebration. Even if the fight in question is covered by the thin veneer of respectability provided by a boxing ring and gloves, there is still little to be pleased about. Footballers-turned-boxers Paul Gallen and Sonny Bill Williams will lace up the gloves and meet in a heavyweight bout in Sydney's Olympic Park on Wednesday. The two ex-NRL forwards will fight over eight, 2-minute rounds and — hopefully — put an end to one of the least dignified feuds in Australian sport. Aside from settling their post-football career rivalry, it's hard to know what is at stake in this bout. Perhaps pride? Most certainly ego. Financial incentives? That goes without saying. Perhaps it doesn't need to be anything more than that. As boxing continues to evolve and find its way in an era where the long-term impacts of repeated head knocks are becoming all the more apparent and audience tastes are changing from the sport's mid-century heyday, non-title fights are becoming more and more prevalent. Whether it's Jake Paul selling out massive arenas stateside, or Conor Benn and Chris Eubank Jr meeting at a catchweight despite their vast size differential to satisfy Britain's lust for another instalment of the legendary battles between their respective fathers, boxing is changing. And to those publicising the fights, that doesn't matter. If you've watched any sporting event covered by Channel Nine over the last couple of weeks, you'd know this fight is taking place. Particularly jarring was the interview that took place in the aftermath of Queensland's State of Origin Game III victory over New South Wales a week ago, when viewers were subject to the insalubrious exhibition of a pitch-side Gallen and Williams via video link bellowing insults over each other. Of course, Nine has to promote its own content and doing so to its target audience of football fans is entirely sensible. It's not the act of promotion that's the issue here. It's what's being sold. The juxtaposition between analysis of a genuine sporting triumph and promoting this contest between two aged warriors felt very off. But this fight is grabbing attention across the networks — Fox Sport mentions it when publicising Sunday's rematch between Sebastian Fundora and Tim Tszyu. "Forget the sideshow," Matt Nable, another footy player who has embraced a new performative career now his playing days are done, drawls. "This ain't two old footy players cashing cheques long after their careers ended," he continues — a puzzling and somewhat hypocritical dig given the success the network enjoyed when Gallen was beating up his fellow NRL retirees on its own pay-per-view channel over the years. This is not to criticise the two men for their willingness to get into the ring. Anyone with the courage to step inside the squared circle, arguably the least forgiving arena in all ot sport, deserves admiration and respect — to a point. Neither Gallen nor Williams comes into this as desperate wannabes, misguidedly believing themselves capable of dancing on the canvas having shadow-boxed in front of the bathroom mirror and watched the Rocky movies a couple of times. Gallen has fought 18 times in his ring career for a record of 15-2-1 (8KOs). Admittedly, there has been a heady whiff of farce about some of those opponents, but Gallen has never once taken anyone lightly, bringing the same determination and professionalism to the ring that characterised his professional football career. And in amongst the Darcy Lussick's, Ben Hannant's and Justin Hodges's — who he inexplicably fought twice — on his resume, he has also stood up against some of Australia's best. Justis Huni and Kris Terzievski both may have beaten Gallen in their Australian heavyweight title bouts, but Gallen did better than most have against genuine prospects. And even while Gallen was fighting other ex-footballers, he used the interest generated by him fighting to help promote other Australian fighters and give them sizeable paydays. Boxers like Tim and Nikita Tszyu, Harry Garside and Huni all benefited from Gallen's profile with inflated purses and prize money on pay-per-views across the country. This fight card sees recognised fighters David Nyika and Terzievski fight, as well as young prospects Alex Leapai Jnr and Rahim Mundine, who will all doubtless benefit from the exposure a Gallen fight will bring. For that alone, Gallen deserves an awful lot of credit — although his ring career has earned him $25 million to date, according to the man himself, so he has been well rewarded. Williams too has pedigree of sorts in the ring. His grandfather, Bill Woolsey, was a New Zealand heavyweight champion and Williams emulated him by claiming that same title in a knockout victory over Clarence Tillman in 2012. That was Williams's fifth pro fight and he followed that up with wins against veterans Frans Botha and Chauncy Welliver before stepping away from the ring between 2015 and 2021. When Williams returned to boxing, he fought Waikato Falefehi and Barry Hall for wins, before a knockout defeat against Mark Hunt, his first in the ring, to leave the New Zealand dual-code international with a pro record of 9-1 (4KOs). So, if these are two professional boxers getting in the ring, having talked about the fight taking place desperately for years, what's the problem? Their age doesn't help. Paul Gallen will be 44 years old in under a month. Sonny Bill Williams is 40. Both men have been out of the ring for two-and-a-half years. Is that even an obstacle? Co-headliner in Tszyu's fight on the weekend, Manny Pacquiao, is 46, hasn't fought anyone since 2021 and hasn't won a fight since 2019 — he is meeting Mario Barrios for the WBC welterweight title on Sunday in Las Vegas. If that makes you feel uneasy, it probably should. Studies show that the impacts of concussions linger for longer and are more severe as people age. Other impacts of aging — reduced reaction time, increasing fatigue and muscle weakness — all combine to make the ring even more dangerous as you get older than it is for younger fighters. Mike Tyson's hideous parody of a return to the ring aged 58 against Jake Paul should be a lesson to us all of the dangers of going on too long. OK, so if the age thing isn't an issue, is it because these two are not "the best" boxers in the traditional sense — Williams admitted as much at the press conference on Monday — but celebrities risking their health for a suggested $1 million payday? That might be it, just as people have issues with YouTuber Paul and his improbable quest for a world title shot. Boxing fans can hardly clutch at their pearls if that is the issue. Both Gallen and Paul, love or loathe them, have contributed and continue to contribute to the development of the sport by adding casual eyeballs to their events — Paul promotes Amanda Serrano through his promotion company and allows the seven-weight world champion from Puerto Rico to actually earn something approaching a decent wage from the sport. Perhaps it is the nauseating back and forth that has been seemingly going on for years — all around them maybe or maybe not meeting in a ring. Maybe, with no clear villain or outright good guy to root for or against, fans are simply conflicted. Let's not forget that, despite being rival players on the pitch several times over the years in the NRL and in international rugby league, there was never any genuine beef between them as players. Perhaps if there had been, we'd have been spared this unedifying spectacle. So, why are they fighting in the first place? Tickets at the Arena in Homebush range from $1,495 to $49. The pay-per-view on Stan Sport is $70. As of Tuesday, the tickets are not sold out but they have been selling. For contrast, the Tszyu vs Fundora world title rematch on Sunday (AEDT) will set fight fans back $69.95 on Main Event — a fight that, from a sporting context, means something. By that, fight fans will tell you it means a world title, a career-defining moment for Tszyu and Fundora both. A chance for them to add their names to the list of legends in their sport. What, then, does the Gallen-Williams fight mean? Perhaps a bigger question is, does it need to mean anything? "I've never been concerned about legacy," Gallen said. "I'm trained to fight. I've been here for one reason. To have a go." The proof will be in how many people tune in to watch it. But whether people do or don't, perhaps the only error is trying to read anything more into this bout than it being a chance for two middle-aged men to publicly air their grievances and make a sack full of cash at the same time.
