Former Warrior Ronald Volkman saga: Dragons coach Shane Flanagan addresses scandal, shoulder injury

Shane Flanagan has admitted Ronald Volkman should not have completed a medical at St George Illawarra training but says it’s clear the halfback arrived injured from the New Zealand Warriors.

One week on from going unsigned at the Dragons, Volkman remains in rugby league purgatory with questions lingering over his immediate future and shoulder injury.

Released by the Warriors last month to head to the Dragons, Volkman spent time training at the St George Illawarra side without doing any contact, before concerns were quickly raised over the state of his shoulder.

The 21-year-old underwent scans and was told he would require major surgery, prompting the Dragons to pull their one-year offer that was yet to be registered by the NRL.

Questions are being asked why Volkman was released from one deal before another was registered, leaving him uninsured when he failed his medical check at training.

Other questions include whether Volkman’s surgery will fall under the game’s insurance policy, and how long he will have to wait for it.

“Maybe some of the on-field testing that we did with him, maybe we should have done that behind closed doors,” Flanagan admitted.

“But what’s the difference? We still found out that he had something going on in his shoulder and then we got all the medical tests that we needed to do to determine that.

“From the medical side of things from our club, I think they did a good job.

“We had the most care and welfare. We did all the testing that we could. I’m disappointed for the young bloke. It’s shattering news.”

Volkman had suffered a previous shoulder injury and underwent surgery in 2022, with two screws now believed to be loose from that operation.

The Dragons received a medical report on his exit from the Warriors, which noted shoulder irritation before their own one returned with conflicting findings upon Volkman’s arrival.

“The facts are he hurt himself when he was at the Warriors and he needs surgery,” Flanagan said.

“We just need to fill the gaps in somewhere.

“I don’t want to get into pointing fingers at clubs. In my 20 years of doing this job, I’ve never had a player fail a medical. So it’s a strange one.

“It was Christmas. He was leaving the Warriors. The Warriors announced that he was leaving, not us.

“He wanted to say goodbye to his teammates before he left the last training session before Christmas and he hadn’t even got here to do his screening or anything.

“There’s a lot of things that could be done better.”

Flanagan, however, insisted the Dragons did not have depth issues in the halves, with his son Kyle to play No 6 and Jack Bird and Jesse Marschke providing back-up.

He was also confident Kyle Flanagan and Ben Hunt would work well together, with Hunt having barely played with a controlling half since Gareth Widdop’s exit in 2019.

“If you look at the Dragons over the last couple of years, on last tackle it’s ‘where’s Ben Hunt?’,” Flanagan said.

“Because that’s where it’s everything is centred around. Now it doesn’t.

“Kyle’s strengths are organisation and just doing his job, where Ben’s strengths are running and running the game. It frees Ben up to do those type of things.”