Dolphins veteran prop Mark Nicholls is adamant a crop of emerging stars will take the NRL’s newest franchise to glory — and backed one star recruit to shine.
The Dolphins entrance to the NRL for the 2023 season was confirmed in October 2021 and club powerbrokers wasted no time signing master coach Wayne Bennett.
One major criticism has been the club’s inability to sign a marquee star in preparation for their inaugural season — despite securing the signatures of the Bromwich brothers, Felise Kaufusi and Hamiso Tabuai-Fidow.
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Nicholls, speaking at the unveiling of the Dolphins’ Redcliffe base, Kayo Stadium, is backing the club’s junior base to unearth future stars and silence the critics.
“There’s a lot of young guys here, the Dolphins have been here a long time, they are a strong club and there is a lot of juniors who grew up just living and breathing rugby league around here,” Nicholls told foxsports.com.au.
“They are all going to get a chance now to play for their home team, there is always going to be young guys who push through and seemingly come from nowhere, but get to the NRL and go to an extra level.”
The Dolphins secured the signature of former Bulldog Jeremy Marshall-King in June after the Belmore-based club signed Reed Mahoney to be their first-choice hooker.
The 27-year-old had a career best season in 2022 and earned a call-up into the New Zealand squad for the World Cup.
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Nicholls believes he could be the man to steer the Dolphins around the park under Bennett and admitted even he “underrated” him.
“He’s one of the guys I am really excited to play footy with, I remember when we played the Bulldogs this year, to be fair I underrated him a bit,” Nicholls said.
“He was really sharp out of dummy-half, he had really good service and he was a really good defender, which is always handy in a hooker.
“He got to go away with the Kiwi boys and hopefully he bounces back in January and plays good footy for us because hooker is such an important position, especially for us front rowers.
“If he can put me over for a try I will like him even more.”
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Nicholls, 32, became a club favourite at the Rabbitohs and made 100 appearances for the South Sydney club after stints with the Raiders and Storm.
The experienced front-rower explained Bennett played a major part in his decision to make the move, and also revealed his time in the Covid bubble last season contributed.
“With Wayne here, to be fair I probably wouldn’t have made the decision to come here without Wayne being the coach,” Nicholls said.
“That was another factor and coming to Queensland, me and my wife both grew up in country NSW so we never really felt like we loved Sydney.
“We enjoyed our three month stint in southeast Queensland last year in the bubble and at the end of that we sort of said ‘it’d be great to live up here’ and the opportunity came not long after that.”
