Manly Sea Eagles head coach Anthony Seibold has confirmed the club have not signed Kyle Falanagan, but promised a 30th player would be signed in the coming weeks to fill their 2023 squad.
Seibold, who watched his team fall to the Gold Coast Titans without the injured Gold Coast Titans on Saturday evening at 4 Pines Park in wet conditions, has been in charge for a positive first nine rounds of the campaign, with the Sea Eagles having four wins, a draw and a bye to their credit.
It emerged during the week that Flanagan, whose father Shane works as an assistant coach in Seibold's staff, was likely to link up with his son from the start of next year.
Those rumours heightened during Saturday's game between the Sea Eagles and the Titans, with News Corp reporting the deal was done - but for an immediate switch.
Flanagan is on the outer at the Bulldogs and has been dropped for Sunday's clash against the St George Illawarra Dragons, with Josh Reynolds to start in the halves and Karl Oloapu on the bench. That followed last week's decision to move Flanagan to five-eighth, with Matt Burton taking over halfback responsibilities.
Seibold said the club have not signed Falangan though, although hinted that the outside backs or halves could be areas they look to for their 30th signing, which will be made before the June 30 cut off when players are no longer allowed to switch teams or join squads if previously unsigned.
"I'm not going to speculate on that. One thing I will say is that we have a spot to fill. We have signed 29 players, and we are going to fill it before June 30," Seibold said during his post-game
"What we are doing at the moment is having a good look at the position we need to fill.
"Probably like an Aaron Woods. We had 28 players, we brought Woodsy in to do a role so we will look around for what we need. We are short for outside backs, potentially we can add to our halves as well, so we will have those conversations during the week, but we certainly haven't signed Kyle Flanagan if that's the speculation."
The Bulldogs have already released Brandon Clarke and Andrew Davey in recent days, and any potential release for Flanagan would open up a third spot in their squad, while seemingly also being an enormous show of faith in Karl Oloapu.
The Bulldogs are yet to comment on the rumour, with nothing regarding Flanagan - who is off-contract at the end of the year and has previously been heavily linked with an early departure from Belmore - official at the time of publication.