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Matt Cooper this!
Oh NRL Heritage Round, take me back to a simpler time when Dragons were great
It also takes some of us back to a time when a fat kid from the north coast was plonked in front of his parents' Rank Arena television, watching the State Bank Big Game, full of hopes and dreams and too many Redskins.
- Andrew Webster SMH
- It's NRL Retro Round, baby, and it takes us back to a time when the jumpers were too big, Greg Hartley's shorts too small and an apple hit Rex Mossop in the side of the head during a post-grand final wrap.
Tigers breeze past Dragons
The Wests Tigers have put aside a week of off-field drama to easily beat the Dragons, 25-12.
Modern-day gladiators in white jumpers emblazoned with a Red V would trot out onto Kogarah Oval and I adored them like a Star Wars action figure. loved Craig Young like he was my old man. I still get nervous when I'm in the company of Ricky Walford. My mum continues to have an unhealthy obsession with Michael O'Connor. Mick "The Penguin" Beattie. Steve Linnane. Patty Jarvis. Billy Noke. Graeme Wynn ...
The players would trudge from the field at the end of the match, the white jumpers now covered in dirt and mud, and it didn't matter if they'd lost or won but how many rival forwards they successfully thwacked in the head.
- And then there was the very serious looking bloke on the sidelines, leaning forward in a maroon spray jacket, the weight of the world seemingly on his shoulders as he watched through Mafia Don-like glasses: coach Roy Masters.
Then they lost the 1985 grand final to those evil, evil, evil [expletives] from Canterbury and a harsh reality came to be.
Sometimes, as a Dragons supporter, you're Luke Skywalker. Sometimes, it feels like you have a terminal disease.
Despite the dramas, the Red V is a part of me, still.
Right now, we're at stage-four s---house. It's serious.
Oh, Dragons. What's happening? You're 11th on the ladder and only one win out of the top eight but I've seen pub sides with better attack on the field and you can't land a player off it.
You threw the bank at a player charged with drug possession, who was in the middle of a sex-tape scandal, who'd been warned by the cops for rubbing shoulders with bad people and he still didn't come.
I could sit here and bash out hundreds of words about chief executivePeter "Oust" Doust, about there being no accountability for frustrated members, about how WIN billionaire Bruce Gordon needs to buy the whole operation and secure the elusive Craig Bellamy-Cooper Cronk package deal.
But these words have been written and said for years, on either side of the 2010 grand final win. The banner in the stands on that beautiful night: "CHOKE ON THAT!" It seems an eternity ago.
Since then, the club has seen quality players leave for others. How the Morris twins, Brett and Josh, can be playing for the Bulldogs still staggers. So, too, Trent Merrin at Penrith.
Should still be at their home club: Former Dragons duo Brett and Josh Morris. Photo: Ken Robertson KRZ
With the greatest respect to Paul McGregor, he does not seem to have the pulling power of a top-line coach.
As one very high-profile player who is looking for a club told me this week: "I couldn't go there in a million years at the moment."
There's an argument the club needs to base itself out of Kogarah again instead of Wollongong, because prospective players want to live in Sydney. But this is a joint venture. Maybe they need to go back to splitting training time between Kogarah and Wollongong.
Whatever the solution, the club has slipped back into this apathetic mire of the odd spirited win here, a lot of bad losses there. A staleness has crept in and it shows in their footy.
The first half against the Wests Tigers last Sunday was as bad as it gets. Sometimes I want Benji Marshall gone; sometimes I think he's the best we've got.
Luckily, as St George Illawarra fans will attest, we're a resilient bunch. We've been hurt before. You don't lose grand finals via video referee in the last two minutes and learn a little bit about yourself and about rugby league.
But if there was ever any sign that things could not get any worse, it comes with this single, sobering statistic ...
Cronulla have won 15 in a row and are favourites to win the comp.
Somebody, please, kill me now.
I just want to use the opportunity to thank our coach for our fourth loss in a row.
Keep it up Paul!
Andrew 'the penguin' Webster.
What do you have against Webster? He wrote the greatest column I've ever read. Ever. Still reduces me to a blubbering mess six years on....
You're not making a great deal of sense.
