The Anzac Day Cup is always the most emotionally charged fixture on the NRL calendar. This year, it arrives with more storylines than ever — a coaching upheaval, a teenage debutant, a club chasing redemption, and a captain playing what could be one of his final Anzac Days in the red, white and blue. Here is everything at stake when the Dragons and Roosters meet at a sold-out Allianz Stadium on Saturday afternoon.
1. Dean Young Takes Charge in His First Game as Interim Coach
The biggest storyline heading into this match has nothing to do with what happens on the field — it is what happened in a living room in the Illawarra earlier this week.
St George Illawarra parted ways with Shane Flanagan on Monday after a winless start to the 2026 season, with former club great Dean Young appointed as interim coach for the remainder of the year. Young’s first act in the job was not to call a press conference or run a training session. It was to drive to the home of 20-year-old halfback Kade Reed and tell the youngster, in front of his parents and brother, that he would be making his NRL debut on Anzac Day.
“There’s lots of things that you don’t enjoy about coaching,” Young said, “but when you give young men the opportunity to reach their dreams, that’s the best part.”
For a club that desperately needs a reason to believe, the image of a new coach turning up unannounced at a young player’s front door to deliver the best news of his life was exactly the kind of moment Dragons fans needed. Whether the football backs it up on Saturday is another question entirely.
2. Kade Reed’s NRL Debut — The Pressure and the Promise
Reed’s path to this moment has been built through the Dragons’ academy system — a Wests Illawarra junior who has worked his way through the grades and caught the eye of coaches with his creative playmaking and sharp kicking game.
He will become the seventh Dragons Academy graduate to debut for the club since the start of last year, stepping into one of the most high-pressure debut situations imaginable: Anzac Day, a sold-out Allianz Stadium, against the Roosters, in a club-record dire run of form.
His NSW Cup numbers suggest he is ready — two tries, five try assists, and 291 metres with nine tackle breaks across his last three appearances. Kyle Flanagan, the man he replaces, has been named on the interchange in jersey No. 18, adding an awkward subplot of its own.
What Reed does with this opportunity will be one of the defining narratives of the afternoon.
3. The Roosters Are Quietly Building Something Dangerous
Three games. Three half-time deficits. Three wins. The Roosters’ pattern of coming from behind has become one of the competition’s most talked-about storylines, and it shows no sign of changing.
After trailing the Sharks by 10 in Round 6 and the Knights by 12 in Round 7, the Roosters have demonstrated a second-half resilience that is either a testament to their depth and fitness — or a warning sign about their slow starts that will eventually catch up with them.
Either way, they arrive at Anzac Day in fifth position and in form. The Roosters have won five of their last six Anzac Day clashes against the Dragons, with St George Illawarra winning only two of their last 15 games against the Roosters overall. The numbers are overwhelmingly in the home side’s favour — but history also tells us the occasion has a habit of levelling the playing field.
4. Tedesco’s Anzac Day — Possibly His Last
Roosters captain James Tedesco described Anzac Day as “the best day of the year for the regular season,” adding that regardless of where each team sits on the ladder, both sides always rise to the occasion.
What he did not say — but what hangs over every moment of his 2026 campaign — is that this could be his final Anzac Day match as a professional footballer. Off-contract at season’s end and carrying ten career concussions, Tedesco is playing what is widely understood to be his farewell season at the club.
His Round 7 performance against the Knights — 270 run metres, three line breaks, three try assists and a try — was the kind of display that reminds you exactly what the game will lose when he eventually walks away. On a day that is already charged with emotion and remembrance, Tedesco’s presence adds another quiet layer of significance.
5. Angus Crichton’s 150th NRL Game
Roosters second-rower Angus Crichton will make his 150th NRL appearance on Saturday — a significant milestone for a player who has been one of the competition’s most reliable and underrated forwards for the better part of a decade. Crichton has been in excellent form in 2026 and will be looking to mark the occasion with a performance to match.
6. The Dragons’ Season Is Already at a Crossroads
St George Illawarra enter Anzac Day winless and sitting last on the NRL ladder. The Dragons have conceded 175 points in four games at the new Allianz Stadium — a remarkable and damning statistic that speaks to the scale of the defensive problems Dean Young has inherited.
The Flanagan sacking was swift and decisive, but it does not instantly fix a roster that has struggled for cohesion, discipline, and intensity through the first eight rounds. Young’s challenge is not just to win football games — it is to restore a sense of identity and belief to a proud club that is currently in freefall.
Anzac Day, with its built-in emotional charge and the expectation of both clubs performing to the occasion, may be the best possible context for a reset. Or it may simply be the next entry in a long list of difficult afternoons.
7. Daly Cherry-Evans’ First Anzac Day in a Roosters Jersey
For most of his 15-year NRL career, Daly Cherry-Evans played Anzac Day for Manly. On Saturday, he will experience it for the first time in the red, white and blue of the Roosters — a reminder of just how much has changed at the club this season with his blockbuster signing.
Cherry-Evans has been a steadying influence in the halves alongside Sam Walker, and the Anzac Day occasion — typically a game that rewards experience and composure — plays directly to his strengths.
