Ben Creagh article

[Gareth67]

That loss against the Tigers was so hard to take , the Dragons had played extremely good footy all year including a thrashing of the chooks down at Kogarah in the final few rounds of the competition.

Still as R&WTILLIDIE has said the black and gold were up to the task and dominated us from the opening whistle , with a very youthful Benji Marshall leading their attack we were just not in the hunt . Still that was yesteryear and it was good to be playing finals footy again. For all his faults Nathan Brown still took the Dragons there and that’s what counts .

 

[Saint_JimmyG]

You can’t blame refs all the time mate. We were raging hot favourites in 2005 and were outplayed by a well coached Tigers team.

In a close encounter, Mander’s incorrect call against Barrett was crucial. And from memory, the Tigers got an early break from another clearly wrong knock on decision against Colin Best.

 

[Old Kogarah Boy 1]

You can’t blame refs all the time mate. We were raging hot favourites in 2005 and were outplayed by a well coached Tigers team.

As it was written back then...............

A team of stars were beaten by a star team.

 

[SGMax]

Brown had the best roster in the league over many years and couldn't get a title.
Its not easy and even Bennett could only get one over 3 years with the same roster.

Brown failed to identify the missing factors such as a battle mentality where the team worked hard for each other, a strong defence, and enforcers like Jeremy Smith, Beau Scott etc,

Bringing in Fien and the return of Gasnier, a dominant centre were very important.
I was always confident that Bennett would have the team in the right frame of mind and playing the right tactics in any game.

Under Brown, there were so many games lost through complacency and unmotivated play.
I also recall the lack of emphasis on defence because they had such an attacking team....but they started every set near their goal line and would make 70m but not really get many opportunities to attack the opposition red zone.

Thank God for Bennett.....we will always have the highlight of 2010.
Can't believe the management didn't learn the importance of having a top line coach.
Dissapointed in some of the senior players (like Hornby and Young) who let go of the knowledge and principles that Bennett instilled as soon as Price took over.

 

[Forster Dragon]

I would bring Browny home as recruitment guru

 

[TruSaint]

Brown had the best roster in the league over many years and couldn't get a title.
Its not easy and even Bennett could only get one over 3 years with the same roster.

Brown failed to identify the missing factors such as a battle mentality where the team worked hard for each other, a strong defence, and enforcers like Jeremy Smith, Beau Scott etc,

Bringing in Fien and the return of Gasnier, a dominant centre were very important.
I was always confident that Bennett would have the team in the right frame of mind and playing the right tactics in any game.

Under Brown, there were so many games lost through complacency and unmotivated play.
I also recall the lack of emphasis on defence because they had such an attacking team....but they started every set near their goal line and would make 70m but not really get many opportunities to attack the opposition red zone.

Thank God for Bennett.....we will always have the highlight of 2010.
Can't believe the management didn't learn the importance of having a top line coach.
Dissapointed in some of the senior players (like Hornby and Young) who let go of the knowledge and principles that Bennett instilled as soon as Price took over.

Hard to argue with this, only to say that Nathan was way too green to take on a head coach role, and coach / manage / inspire ex team mates. He himself has admitted the role he undertook was premature.

 

[D4L_Dave]

You don’t believe Brown said the same thing?

Yes I did hear Brown address it in interviews how he told it too his players. It was before a game against the Storm in Melbourne 2006. Ryles took it too far in the game and got sent off. I agree about the player respect thing when you are talking about ones who played alongside him but truth be known, by 2005 three years into his coaching career, the numbers had become very thin I that department.

As for those who think Bennett is so much better, he has won two premierships in past 19yrs with Dragons as one of them and the other in 2006 when we beat his Broncos 3 times and we met our 'bogie psych' team Melbourne in the prelim and history has shown that young Melbourne team went onto to great things and Bennett changed his style to the dour defensive based tactics.

Bennett has at no stage had to build a struggling team, he is a very good man manager, but if he was truly great he would have gone to Gold Coast or a struggle team as oppossed to making a team become a struggle club like he did to Dragons and Knights

 

[Saint_JimmyG]

Yes I did hear Brown address it in interviews how he told it too his players. It was before a game against the Storm in Melbourne 2006. Ryles took it too far in the game and got sent off. I agree about the player respect thing when you are talking about ones who played alongside him but truth be known, by 2005 three years into his coaching career, the numbers had become very thin I that department.

As for those who think Bennett is so much better, he has won two premierships in past 19yrs with Dragons as one of them and the other in 2006 when we beat his Broncos 3 times and we met our 'bogie psych' team Melbourne in the prelim and history has shown that young Melbourne team went onto to great things and Bennett changed his style to the dour defensive based tactics.

Bennett has at no stage had to build a struggling team, he is a very good man manager, but if he was truly great he would have gone to Gold Coast or a struggle team as oppossed to making a team become a struggle club like he did to Dragons and Knights

Re: the Ryles send off. Was that the instance where referee Badger gave him his marching orders for stepping on the foot on an opposition front rower?

 

[R&WTILLIDIE]

Double post

 

[R&WTILLIDIE]

Brown had the best roster in the league over many years and couldn't get a title.
Its not easy and even Bennett could only get one over 3 years with the same roster.

Brown failed to identify the missing factors such as a battle mentality where the team worked hard for each other, a strong defence, and enforcers like Jeremy Smith, Beau Scott etc,

Bringing in Fien and the return of Gasnier, a dominant centre were very important.
I was always confident that Bennett would have the team in the right frame of mind and playing the right tactics in any game.

Under Brown, there were so many games lost through complacency and unmotivated play.
I also recall the lack of emphasis on defence because they had such an attacking team....but they started every set near their goal line and would make 70m but not really get many opportunities to attack the opposition red zone.

Thank God for Bennett.....we will always have the highlight of 2010.
Can't believe the management didn't learn the importance of having a top line coach.
Dissapointed in some of the senior players (like Hornby and Young) who let go of the knowledge and principles that Bennett instilled as soon as Price took over.

this is exactly my thoughts. Great post

 

[muzby]

Well this is one of the more random thread bumps I’ve seen in a while..

 

[Draginzaaar]

You can’t blame refs all the time mate. We were raging hot favourites in 2005 and were outplayed by a well coached Tigers team.

We dropped the ball the first 7 times we had it in the 2nd half. Can't win games with that many errors. We lost by 10. If we played ok, we would have won by 20. If we played good..........

 

[Draginzaaar]

Brown had the best roster in the league over many years and couldn't get a title.
Its not easy and even Bennett could only get one over 3 years with the same roster.

Brown failed to identify the missing factors such as a battle mentality where the team worked hard for each other, a strong defence, and enforcers like Jeremy Smith, Beau Scott etc,

Bringing in Fien and the return of Gasnier, a dominant centre were very important.
I was always confident that Bennett would have the team in the right frame of mind and playing the right tactics in any game.

Under Brown, there were so many games lost through complacency and unmotivated play.
I also recall the lack of emphasis on defence because they had such an attacking team....but they started every set near their goal line and would make 70m but not really get many opportunities to attack the opposition red zone.

Thank God for Bennett.....we will always have the highlight of 2010.
Can't believe the management didn't learn the importance of having a top line coach.
Dissapointed in some of the senior players (like Hornby and Young) who let go of the knowledge and principles that Bennett instilled as soon as Price took over.

Didn't we get Fein half way through 2008?

 

[SGMax]

We dropped the ball the first 7 times we had it in the 2nd half. Can't win games with that many errors. We lost by 10. If we played ok, we would have won by 20. If we played good..........

I went to that game, I remember thinking it was a certain win for the Dragons.
We had been dominant along with the Eels all year and could not imagine losing to the Tigers.
We played a shocker and now the Tigers are talked about as having a great team that year.
The two best teams that year (Dragons and Eels) are not even mentioned.

 

[SGMax]

Didn't we get Fein half way through 2008?

You may be thinking of Luke Priddis.
Fien came across halfway through 2009 from the Warriors.
Lucky to get him as Priddis was having injury issues at the end of his career.

 

[kit66]

Didn't we get Fein half way through 2008?

July 2009

 

[kit66]

I went to that game, I remember thinking it was a certain win for the Dragons.
We had been dominant along with the Eels all year and could not imagine losing to the Tigers.
We played a shocker and now the Tigers are talked about as having a great team that year.
The two best teams that year (Dragons and Eels) are not even mentioned.

Should have won in 2005, 2009, 2018 and of course 1999. Absolutely should have won in those years plus a few others, had the teams to do it but apart from 2009 not the coach.

 

[SGMax]

Should have won in 2005, 2009, 2018 and of course 1999. Absolutely should have won in those years plus a few others, had the teams to do it but apart from 2009 not the coach.

The one I will never get over is 1985 v Bulldogs.
2 weeks earlier we beat them comfortably in the semi to go straight to the GF.

We should also have won the 1993 GF as the Broncos played terrible and were there for the taking.
We just lacked the belief to take it from them.

 

[Inisai Toga]

The one I will never get over is 1985 v Bulldogs.
2 weeks earlier we beat them comfortably in the semi to go straight to the GF.

We should also have won the 1993 GF as the Broncos played terrible and were there for the taking.
We just lacked the belief to take it from them.

Losing our front rower Jason Stevens from the first tackle of the game with a broken thumb didn’t help either..

 

[Slippery Morris]

Creagh's first game was a shocker but Browny persisted. He ended up a rep player. After watching Mary drop youngsters for a bad game (Mann was the best example of this), you realise how bad a coach he was and how much better Browny is. If Anything Browny is opposite to Mary, a junior has a bad game he gives them a chance and if a senior player has a bad game he puts a rocket up them. Mary on the other hand will give the senior player (usually a has-been or unwanted player from another club) a million chances and the Saints junior would be dropped for 1 bad game.