According to Love Rugby League, St Helens is considering filing a complaint with the NRL on how the South Sydney Rabbitohs have been handled and how they have been approaching prop George Delaney.
Delaney, Wigan’s Tyler Dupree, Leeds’ Tom Holroyd, and Leigh prop Tom Amone were the other three players whom Souths and their football manager, Mark Ellison, reportedly identified as possible targets for the 2025 season.
Delaney’s contract with the Saints expires at the end of the 2026 campaign, though, and it is thought that the Super League team has no plans to let him go.
In order to complete the signing of Lewis Dodd, a scrum-half for St Helens whose contract expires at the end of this season, Ellison recently travelled to the United Kingdom.
However, Love Rugby League has discovered that the Saints are dissatisfied with the Souths’ approach to Delaney, which was made without the club’s consent, and they are now thinking about filing an official complaint with the NRL on the matter.
During Ellison’s stay in England, Souths are rumoured to have had a casual discussion with Delaney on the prospect of moving to the NRL without first informing the Saints—a move that has the Super League team in quiet rage.
Though they maintain that Delaney would not be up for sale, Love Rugby League was informed by sources close to the team that there was at least a presumption that a purchasing club would get in touch with a team that a player is contracted to discuss whether or not they would be interested in a transfer.
Given that Delaney still has more than two years left on his current Saints contract and has just recently made the first team in the previous two years, there is currently no indication that he is amenable to a move to the NRL.
Delaney made his Super League debut in 2022, and it wasn’t until last summer that the Saints signed the prop to a long-term deal. They also don’t plan on letting the prop go, and they may even report Souths’ actions to the NRL in the hopes that they would take appropriate action.
