McGregor playing the long game despite hot start
Local Sport
HOT SEAT: Dragons coach Paul McGregor feels right at home at the helm as he heads into his fourth season in charge. Picture: John Veage
Anyone who’s been involved in the greatest game of all will tell you, there’s no more demanding mistress than rugby league.
It’s something Dragons coach Paul McGregor is admittedly still learning as he enters his fourth season as an NRL head coach.
It’s no mean feat given he’s spent 93 games perched in arguably the hottest coaching seat in the NRL. Only former teammate Nathan Brown, who McGregor will face-off against this week, has sat in that chair on more occasions for the club.
By the end of his current deal, McGregor will be the joint-ventures longest-serving coach. For a man who never envisioned being an NRL coach at all, it’s a fair ride.
“Certainly I’ve got a huge passion for the club,” he said.
“I was a St George supporter before I played for Illawarra. I was fortunate enough to captain my Illawarra team in the Steelers and then the joint-venture in 1999.
“I’ve got a huge competitive nature around trying to do the best I possibly can for this club. Certainly over the few years I’ve been involved it’s been about nothing more than leaving the club in a better place than I found it in.
“That’s something I want to do when my time’s up here. It has been a little bit of marathon over the last few years but I feel the club’s now in a very good position.
“I want to make sure I continue that. I know head coaching jobs are about winning and losing but, when it is time for me to move on, I want to ensure the club’s in a really good position to go forward.”
You would certainly have to say things are rosier than when he reluctantly stepped into the top job after the sacking of former coach Steve Price.
As he told the waiting media pack that day: “I always wanted to be involved in rugby league, never as a head coach.” If only he knew then, what he knows now.
It wasn’t all that different to the way his storied playing career with the Steelers began in 1991. It took Steelers GM Bob Millward several seasons to talk the precociously talented young centre into leaving the Dapto Canaries and donning the BHP Steel at age 23.
He made his NSW Origin debut just a season later. Another two seasons and he was an International.
Stories about that time, specifically an attitude to training, are often exaggerated, but McGregor – who as a coach rises before dawn each day – admits his work ethic has changed.
“It is a bit different, yeah,” he chuckles
FORGED IN STEEL: Paul McGregor debuted for the Steelers at 23. He made his Origin debut just a year en route to his first Test jumper. Picture: Palani Mohan
“It was a different era. In the early 90s it wasn’t fulltime so you were coming into training after or before work. It became fulltime mid 90s and I was then a current Australian player so obviously my work ethic had changed.
“If it’s one thing it’s taught me, I really understand how important preseasons are. I had 14 operations throughout my career so I didn’t really get those consistent preseasons to be at my best.
“As a coach I certainly understand that now. The physical shape your in really affects the mental state you’re in as well.”
It probably explains why, at 50, he still spends hours slogging it out in the team gym, or why he spent the 2017 preseason sweating it out on the training paddock with his players.
Anything to keep a clear mind through what’s been a roller coaster ride at the helm. No two seasons have been the same, since his unexpected elevation to the to top job.
It’s been a harsh school at times, but it leaves McGregor confident with where the club is at as his fourth campaign commences.
“Each year, each week, the NRL teaches you different things,” McGregor said.
“You obviously get more comfortable the more experience you get, the same as it is for a player. You know within yourself what works and what doesn’t.
“If you look at successful sides, and it’s where we’re trying to get to as a team and as a club, it’s about doing ordinary things with extraordinary consistency, commitment and focus.
“It’s about having the right characters and right people in your organisation, it’s about having a good balanced squad with everyone respecting each other’s role.
“I feel whenever we’ve been at our best that’s the culture we’ve had.”
A recruitment drive that’s netted the likes of Ben Hunt and James Graham means he’s never been better positioned for success. A flying start to the season has helped, but the joy is tempered by it’s similarities to 2017.
It ended in a stunning finals fade out, the Bulldogs hammering the final nail in their coffin in round 26.
Each year, each week, you spend in the NRL teaches you different things but you obviously get more comfortable the more experience you get.
Paul McGregor
It was perhaps the harshest lesson of them all, but one McGregor has driven home to his squad.
“We’ve spoken about throughout the whole 2017-18 preseason about consistency and living up to our values and beliefs,” he said.
“The journey of 26 weeks of an NRL competition is very demanding. We’re in good physical condition, we’ve got a good tactical understanding of what we need to do, but we need to stay on top of our game mentally.
“We’ve started well which is great.We need to maintain those standards regardless of the opposition. Last year we lost five games to teams that finished below us in the competition.
“It’s about being consistent and making sure that gap between our best and our worst is very minimal. Last year it was really large.
The early signs have been encouraging, with three wins from three starts heading into Sunday’s clash with Newcastle in Wollongong.
It’s enough to sit comfortably at the top of the table, but McGregor said it’s the varying manner of the victories that has been most pleasing.
It has been a little bit of marathon over the last few years but I feel the club’s now in a very good position and I want to continue that.
Paul McGregor
“There’s been three very different circumstances in the three wins we’ve had,” he said.
“I think we got the Broncos at the right time in round one and we dominated through the middle with our power.
“We scrapped really well against Cronulla [in round two], we really fought hard to grind the win out.
“It was a pretty untidy game but we were clinical in the way we never got concerned about being behind by 14. We’ve lost those games in the past.
“Against the Titans one the weekend it was 8-all they seemed to have the energy on us, but once we got to the right parts of the field we were very clinical in our execution and we managed to score 50 points.
“It’s certainly better looking at points than looking for them, but it’s about maintaining that momentum heading into this week.”
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Scott Davis/NRL Photos
