Latest news with #DeanYoung
Daily Mail
24-06-2025
- Sport
- Daily Mail
Footy great Jamie Soward took his team to a grand final win - now he says the club doesn't even have his phone number even though he worked for them last year
Dragons legend Jamie Soward has taken aim at his former club ahead of an upcoming players' reunion, claiming team bosses don't even have his contact details. The ex-Saints halfback, who led the club to a grand final win in 2010 and later coached their NRLW team, has shed light on a rift that has left fans stunned. Soward says things are so bad that club bosses had to ask a third-party contact for his details to invite him to an upcoming premiership reunion. 'There's [a former players' day] coming up next month, which this sums up for me,' he told James Graham's The Bye Round podcast. 'They had to ring someone, a mutual person that works at the club, to get my details to invite me to it. Really? I worked there last year. 'I've never felt welcomed back after I left. Even when I was coaching, I've never felt welcome back. And they can say what they want to say. That's how I feel.' Soward, who racked up 141 games for the Red V, revealed that notable club figures didn't reach out to him after he was sacked as the NRLW coach. 'There's people there that knew me before I came back into coaching that I would talk to, that see around the traps, that when I got let go, didn't check in on me, didn't see anything at all,' he said. 'And rugby league is a really small world. If you really, really hate someone, that's hard to come back from. But there's guys there that I expected to reach out. 'I had guys from other clubs - former players, Ben Hornby, Brett Morris, Dean Young - rang me personally. "Flanno" rang me. But there's other people in that organisation that looked at me and just treated me like [they did in 2013].' Soward joined the Panthers on a four-year deal in 2014 after the Dragons decided to only offer him a one-year extension. 'People say, "Why'd you leave the Dragons?" The Dragons got rid of me,' he said. 'They didn't want me there in 2013, which is fine. When one club is offering you four years, and a club you've won a premiership with offers you one year without any resolution to sit down and say, "Where do you want to get to?"
RTÉ News
02-06-2025
- Sport
- RTÉ News
Fergal Quinn secures two-year WST tour card through Q School
Fergal Quinn has secured a two year card on the World Snooker Tour after coming through Q School over the weekend. He defeated world number 96 Dean Young 4-1 in Leicester in the deciding match, having earlier seen off Ashley Carty - who finished last season at 68 in the world rankings - Keith Keldie, Sean O'Sullivan and Ronnie Sullivan. It gives the Tyrone native the opportunity to compete at the elite level of the sport as he looks to build on his progress in the amateur game, including reaching the semi-finals of the WSF World Amateur Championship in Morocco in January. Speaking after securing the tour card, he admitted that he had contemplated his future in the game after so much disappointment over the last half decade. "I'm just so excited to see what the next two years has to offer, to be honest," he told "After this Q School I was genuinely unsure what direction I was going to go down with my life path. I'm 25 years-old, another year, 26, 27... I have big ambitions for myself in my life in general. "Sometimes it's hard to know and eventually you have to trust that snooker is for me. This game keeps pulling me back in. Maybe I was going to walk away from this game for six months "Now it's pulled me back in, I'm on the tour - it's a bit crazy, to be honest. Now it gives me something to focus on for the next two years, simplifying my life a lot. "I'm a professional snooker player now and that's all I have to focus on." Quinn has been trying to secure a tour card since 2018 and becomes the second Irish player to earn a debut season on the tour after Leone Crowley, who managed it by winning the WSF Junior Championship in January. Antrim's Mark Allen is the top ranked Irish player at number 10, with Cork's Aaron Hill set to start the new campaign at 49 in the world. Also on tour in the 2025/2026 season will be Jordan Brown, Robbie McGuigan and 1997 world champion Ken Doherty.
