Trent Robinson lashes Newcastle Knights over their handling of Dom Young’s exit from the Roosters

A premiership-winning NRL coach has slammed a rival for the way they handled trying to get their hands on one of his players.

Sydney Roosters coach Trent Robinson has slammed the Newcastle Knights and Dom Young’s management for how they’ve handled the star winger’s potential early release, accusing his rivals of trying to “bluff” his club throughout the process.

A fed-up Robinson also confirmed that Brandon Smith had played his last game for the club and would join Souths this week after getting through his medical.

While that has been a clean process, the three-time premiership-winning coach has called out the Knights for trying to get the Roosters to pay Young’s salary for the rest of 2025 despite the club not pushing for a potential early release.

The English winger is contracted until the end of 2027 after moving from the Knights to join the Roosters last year, but rumours of a possible return to the Hunter dominated headlines last week after he was dropped to reserve grade.

Robinson is adamant that the Roosters never shopped the representative winger to the Knights, with the veteran coach airing his grievances during a rare Monday morning press conference.

“All that has been fairly annoying,” he said.

“That’s not to do with any of you guys (the media), but the way it was put out there was that we were trying to push him out, which wasn’t the case.

Sydney Roosters coach Trent Robinson has labelled the Dom Young situation ‘annoying’. Picture: Cameron Spencer/Getty Images

“Newcastle rang us having talked with his manager beforehand when he got dropped to try to get him out, and we said ‘yes’.

“They wanted us to pay the whole year and we went ‘no, if you want him (then you have to pay)’.

“The chairman said they had the money to take him now, and we agreed. The management wanted that, but then they’ve backtracked at the end of the week and today.

“That’s really annoying. If you ask for something and you’ve prepared it, then you stick by it. They haven’t done that and it’s thrown Dom and us in a spin all this week when it wasn’t our doing, so it’s all a bit annoying.

“Dom hasn’t done anything wrong in all of this. It’s been an annoying week … it’s not how you do things.”

Robinson and Young spoke last week to work out who instigated it, with the coach stressing the club hadn’t tried to push him out, while the winger said he didn’t know where it had come from.

Young’s form had been an issue which is why Mark Nawaqanitawase replaced him on the wing, but Robinson said that was purely because the former Wallabies star was outplaying him and there was room for Young to return to the side.

Any potential move now looks dead and buried unless the Knights offer to chip in a substantial sum, with Robinson happy for the winger to stay and fight to win back his spot in the team.

“I think they’re trying to bluff us,” he said.

“We had not one discussion about letting Dom go. That wasn’t a discussion at all.

There is no room for Young in first grade at the moment. Picture: Brett Hemmings/Getty Images

“Then we get an approach from Newcastle and his management and they say ‘we want this to happen’.

“They want us to release him and pay money for it when we weren’t even thinking about releasing him. In what world does that happen? You asked, you said you had room in your cap, so get it sorted.

“You threw a guy’s life upside down for a week and you put another club in, but just do it in the right way.”

Meanwhile, Smith is set to join the Rabbitohs this week as he continues to recover from a serious knee injury that will keep him sidelined for another two months.

Smith joined the Roosters in 2023 but never reached the stunning heights he did at the Storm, with the dynamic hooker signing with Souths for the next two seasons.

“Brandon is doing his medical this morning, so I think that’s pretty clean and that should get sorted today. He’ll move over there from I’d say tomorrow,” Robinson said.

“That will get the tick off today with Souths.

“I feel like the first year was difficult and he didn’t hit the form that we wanted in that first year. There were reasons for that.

“He was on a tear last year. There was momentum building, and then he got the knee injury.”

Originally published as Trent Robinson lashes Newcastle Knights over their handling of Dom Young’s exit from the Roosters