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‘I was uncoachable’: How Sloan turned his attitude around and why he’s warmed to Gutho
February 1, 2025 — 7.30pm
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Tyrell Sloan, after overcoming his initial misgivings, has realised Clint Gutherson will help rather than hinder his ambition of becoming the long-term St George Illawarra fullback.
It’s a sign of maturity from Sloan, who admits he was “uncoachable” when he first burst onto the NRL s
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Sloan re-signed in June last year after seemingly making the St George Illawarra No.1 jersey his own. Yet, after Sloan started at fullback on 23 occasions in 2024, coach Shane Flanagan broke the news that the former Parramatta captain would take over the custodian role. Speaking for the first time since Gutherson’s arrival, Sloan said he had put aside his initial misgivings.
“I did re-sign throughout the year, and it was pretty weird at the start,” Sloan told this masthead.
“At the start, I was a bit unsure about it. It’s fight or flight. I was a bit confused about the decision. But when I actually got to meet Gutho and you see the way he goes about his day, how he trains, how he moves, how he works, how he communicates, just all the little things that he does, then I understood why we brought Gutho in.
Tyrell Sloan has welcomed the arrival of Clint Gutherson to the Dragons.
“It’s all sweet, it’s all business. I’m happy that he’s here.
“I could have taken it a different way and kicked stones, but Gutho’s been the best since day one.
“Even before he started training, he hit me up and told me why he’s here. And the reason why he’s here is he wants to win and help me be a better player.
“There’s some things that I can do that Gutho can’t do, and there’s things that he does that I can’t do.
“I feel like if I can grab some stuff from his game and implement it in mine, I’ll be a lot better player for it.
“I don’t wanna kick stones, because I’m past that. I feel like I’m a bit more mature now, a bit more level-headed.
“I wanna win and having Gutho here. He’s just challenged everyone from day one; he’s bringing that winning mindset.”
For the second pre-season in a row, Sloan has had a disrupted summer. A stress injury in his right foot has limited his training regime, although he expects to be fit for the Charity Shield match against South Sydney on February 22. While frustrated that his field work has been limited, it has allowed the 22-year-old to focus on his strength, and the result is he has bulked up from 86 to 94 kilograms without any discernible loss of speed.
With Gutherson certain to play fullback, Sloan hopes to play outside centre Moses Suli on the right wing. The opportunity to learn from Gutherson is viewed as an opportunity for Sloan to improve his game and fulfil his ultimate goal of one day becoming the Red V’s long-term fullback.
“It just brings a new mindset to how I look at rugby league,” Sloan said.
“The way he approaches training, he just challenges everyone, challenges the staff, and he’s not afraid to pull out players that are in the wrong.
“The Dragons boys now are growing from that, not from just walking away from stuff and walking past it. You pull them up when people have gone wrong and he’s brought that competitive mindset.
“We’re in a business where we need to win or we get put out the back door. I’m looking forward to playing alongside him and hopefully link it up, sure.”
Sloan lit up the NRL with a series of eye-catching performances in his debut season in 2021. However, the Dapto Canaries product concedes early success went to his head.
“At the start of my career, I did not know how to take it at all,” he said. “I was probably uncoachable.
“I didn’t really want advice and thought I knew everything. I got a real rude shock into NRL. I guess with years in the game, you mature over time. Now it’s a big thing having to do stuff away from footy, surrounding yourself with the right people.
“You just gotta be consistent on a day-to-day basis. I was probably a bit frantic early in my career; I was living at other people’s houses and not really sure where I was gonna be throughout the day.
“I was always up and down. But then I bought my own house, got some structure in my life and really settled down.
“As soon as I started to get that right, and I’m still working on it now, I felt like my footy and my life started to get a lot better and more consistent.
“With the mental side of things, I think I just took a bit of time to sort of grow up. I always try to hang around the right people, but early in my career, I wasn’t.
“I wasn’t doing the right stuff away from footy and just expecting everything to come. Now I really value hard work, turning up on time and just doing all the little things right, eating properly. If you don’t do that, it will catch up to you later on.”
As is standard practice, Flanagan and the Dragons staff sit down with each player to review their season performance. While much was made of captain Ben Hunt being taken to task, Sloan’s review was also at times scathing.
“I was probably uncoachable. I didn’t really want advice and thought I knew everything.”
Tyrell Sloan on his early days in the NRL
“Until you hear it from someone else, it can be quite a shock,” he said.
“But with my review, I was happy because it woke me up. As soon as you’re comfortable, you’re at the back door.
“I’m not like that, but I felt like my review was gonna be good and then there were a lot of moments brought up that it wasn’t.
“How you take it and how you respond shows who you truly are.”
There has been debate about the place of the All Stars match in the schedule due to the unavailability of a number of stars – including Latrell Mitchell, Josh Addo-Carr, Nicho Hynes and Cody Walker – for the event at the start of the season. Sloan confirmed he was also a non-starter after coming back from injury and suggested the event could be better placed at the end of the season.
“It’s a way better idea,” he said.
“I don’t want to comment on it too much because I’m not in a position to comment and change the date, but I guess it’s been like that for a few years now.
“It might be a pretty cool initiative to have it at the end of the year, just after the grand final, a couple of weeks after that.
“That would be around the [Koori] knockout time. Sometimes we’re not allowed to play at the knockout, so it’ll probably be a different way to go about it.
“Maybe they could take it to a rural venue so all the mob get to see the All Stars.”
