Shane Flanagan had him on the Dragons’ radar before the Roosters got him in 2024. Now the Roosters are set to move on. The PNG Chiefs are emerging as frontrunners. And a club currently in crisis — under a new interim coach and desperate for forward firepower — might just be regretting the one that got away.
Here is a fact that has largely been buried under the noise of Spencer Leniu’s on-field controversies: when he was deciding between clubs in 2024, the St George Illawarra Dragons were serious contenders. Shane Flanagan — then the Dragons’ coach — ranked Leniu very highly and made a genuine push to bring him to Wollongong. The Roosters won that battle. Now, with the Roosters set to move on from Leniu at the end of 2027, the question of where he lands next opens up a recruitment race — and the Dragons, under new interim coach Dean Young, are a club that could use exactly what Leniu provides.
The irony is almost too neat. A coach who wanted Leniu was sacked. The club that beat him for his signature is now letting him go. And the player at the centre of it all — 25 years old, State of Origin representative, Samoa international, three-time premiership winner — is approaching the most important contract decision of his career.
The Roosters’ decision to not re-sign Leniu is not primarily about his off-field history — the racial vilification charge in 2024, the Johnathan Thurston incident in 2025. It is about the forward depth the club has developed around him. Lindsay Collins has grown into one of the competition’s premier props. Naufahu Whyte is pushing strongly for a starting role. With both commanding significant cap space, the arithmetic of keeping Leniu at his $800,000-per-season rate becomes difficult to justify when the internal options are this compelling.
The Roosters have form for this kind of calculated forward turnover. They let Jared Waerea-Hargreaves go to Super League. They saw Terrell May and Sitili Tupouniua depart. The forward pack looks different every two seasons — but the system, under Robinson and his coaching staff, consistently produces results. Leniu is the latest chapter in that pattern.
“There has been a little chatter around it — the PNG Chiefs are emerging as a likely destination for Leniu given his standing within the Roosters and his close connection with Jarome Luai.”
— Isaac Issa, Footy In Focus Podcast, May 2026
The most credible destination in current rugby league circles is the PNG Chiefs — the NRL’s 19th franchise, set to join the competition in 2028. The Chiefs are aggressively building their foundation squad. Jarome Luai has already been linked strongly, and Leniu’s close friendship with the Panthers and Blues playmaker makes the combination genuinely appealing on both a personal and rugby league level.
For Leniu specifically, the PNG Chiefs offer something no NRL club can match — significance. To be part of a historic first squad representing Papua New Guinea in the NRL competition is a different kind of legacy than anything available at a Sydney club. For a player whose career has been defined as much by its controversies as its brilliance, the opportunity to rebuild his reputation as a founding member of a new franchise carries real weight.
Under Dean Young, the Dragons are rebuilding from scratch. Eight straight losses. A forward pack that was exposed repeatedly in the 62-16 ANZAC Day demolition by the Roosters. Young — who knows the competition’s forward market as well as anyone — will be identifying exactly the kind of player that can shift the culture of a club in crisis.
Spencer Leniu is, when fit and motivated, exactly that kind of player. His impact off the bench — or increasingly in a starting role — is among the most explosive in the competition. His State of Origin credentials give him immediate standing in any forward pack. His physical profile, at 25 years old, means a club signing him for 2028 would be getting a player at the peak of his powers.
The question for the Dragons is whether they can get ahead of the PNG Chiefs and the open market. With Flanagan gone and the recruitment landscape shifted entirely under Young’s interim appointment, the club’s ability to move quickly in the player market is genuinely uncertain. But the need is real. The forward pack is the most pressing rebuild priority at Wollongong in 2026.
Shane Flanagan wanted Spencer Leniu in 2024. The Roosters got him. The Roosters are now moving on. The Dragons — the club that missed him first — are now a side in crisis under a new coach, in desperate need of the kind of forward firepower that Leniu, when everything clicks, provides better than almost anyone in the competition. The market opens November 1. The PNG Chiefs are the frontrunner. But rugby league recruitment is never simple — and a former Dragon’s instinct about Leniu was right the first time. It might just be right again.
