I went to the game last night at a cold Bruce stadium and I have to say that watching the Dragons in real life gave me a very different perspective on how they are performing and I have some opinions that may not be popular:
1) Dragons Fans - While the Dragons fans were in the minority, they were everything I love about Dragons fans, loud, supportive and multi cultural. Lucky enough to sit with the Dragons fans in the last 10 minutes when an improbable victory appeared possible if not likely and the fans screamed their support and were just amazing. Really great set of fans on the night despite the cold who cheered with passion for 80 minutes and worked out with their heads held high despite some abusive Raiders fans!!
2) Kyle Flanagan - Kyle Flanagan is not the problem. We are not losing games because of Kyle Flanagan, if the rest of the team was disciplined and played their roles all 80 minutes we could win more football. The problem is we expect Kyle to save us and deliver a miracle, he is not that sort of player but he is also not on the same sort of money that Ben Hunt was on so it is unfair of us to expect him to do so. Ultimately he is going to be our 14 when Liddle takes the starting hooker role and we get Atkinson. Flanagan worked hard and was far from the worst on the field.
3) Tyrell Sloan - He is just not good enough in defence and he seems to play with a self centred style. When he collided with Gutho, that was just pure selfish football. I think unfortunately he needs to leave for both the club's best interests and his own. I think sadly he will be like so many other players we have let go who have not delivered elsewhere.
4) Gutho and Cook - Both players in my opinion are doing what we signed them up to do. They work hard and they provide a lot of on field leadership. Big ups to both players who really led from the front and never slowed down.
5) Finau - He is a monster in defence and a demon in attack. Just awesome player and in the flesh he is a big unit!!
6) Refereeing - I was brought up to never blame the referee and always acknowledge that you will make as many mistakes, if not more, than the referee. Since the retirement of Bill Harrigan (him not calling the blatant forward pass in 99 Grand Final still makes me mad) I have tried my best to not pile onto the referee with everyone else when things do not go our way.
But holy sh@t last night really tested me, the referee's performance was terrible and even the Raiders fan I attended the match with (yes I made a Raiders fan sit in the Dragon fans area) acknowledged how biased the refereeing was. I counted 4 instances where the Raiders blatantly held a Dragons player down preventing fast play the balls near the try line, when combined with that ludicrous forward pass call the referee had an undue impact on the game and his performance should be scrutinised. I still don't think it cost us the match but geez it did not help.
7) Unforced errors - Ricky Stuart clearly gave the Raiders a simple game plan of playing low risk disciplined football, knowing with confidence that his team could wait for the Dragons to make stupid unforced errors. All of the Raiders players (except Horsburgh) simply focused on defence and not making stupid passes or desperate plays and waited for us to self destruct.
If the Dragons had done the same, simply put, they would have won. The Raiders backline was quiet and scored most of its points off Dragons mistakes rather than creativity. Our squad needs to concentrate on two really fundamental things holding onto the ball and making tackles count.
8) Defence - I think the Dragons defence last night was solid. The defence moved well and they did not panic when Raiders had multiple sets on our try line. There was good teamwork and structure, but...
OMG some of the individual tackling was just abysmal the number of tackles that were missed when a Raiders player was running straight was just embarrassing. The Raiders did not need to step or palm off they just ran straight and the individual Dragons player who was in position let his team mates down by not making the tackle.
9) Coach - I still see a massive improvement in our team over last year and we are playing better across 80 minutes than we did throughout most of the Hook era. I still believe and I still think Flano is our long term coach, our defence is better structured, our attack is more fluid and we play for the whole 80 mins which we never did under Hook.
In Flano We Trust still remains true.
10) Simple things - I have been a Dragon's fan since 1979 and there has been a consistent discipline problem at the club where we just do not do the simple things well. This has traditionally been covered up stars who can score more points than our fundamental ill discipline costs us. Roy Masters commented it was there when he joined us in 1982 and coaches like Brian Smith and David Waite managed to reduce it but unfortunately in the Grand Finals it always sneaked back and cost us.
The only period I remember when we were a properly disciplined team was in 2009 and 2010 under Wayne Bennett. For a brief period every player could be relied upon to do their job for the entire 80 minutes.
Unfortunately that was only temporary and even in 2011 the rot started to set back in. Changing the footballing culture at the Dragons is not going to be quick or easy. Poor culture and poor discipline has been a by word at the club since 1980.
Flano is the first coach in my living memory who is trying to fix it with fundamental change and who recognises sustainable change is not chieved by cutting corners. A strong football culture has decades of ill discipline to overcome and will be a slow painful change but if we stay the course we can recreate ourselves as a powerhouse club again.
We would have won last night if we had missed less tackles, made less unforced errors and players had held onto the ball. These are fundamental skills and their lack represent poor attitude by a handful of players rather than a flaw in coaching and players with this attitude need to be removed.
The rebuild of our club is a long term project and cutting corners for short term success will ultimately cost us in the long run. Simply put players who do not have the right attitude need to be removed as they are toxic to the great work that Shane is doing to improve culture.
