Inside Dragons’ freefall — from powerhouse to an NRL disgrace ‘devoid of soul’
Dragons
Issac Luke of the Dragons looks on during the torrid loss to Canterbury.Source: Getty Images
The once mighty Red V of St George Illawarra stands accused of being inept, devoid of soul and having no DNA.
It would never have happened under the watch of Wayne Bennett, Harry Bath, Norm Provan or Frank Facer.
What sort of reactive powerbrokers call an emergency general meeting and then issue the full support of the board to the coach? Dribble.
Everyone knows it means Paul McGregor will most likely be gone by the middle of next month.
Round 5
Fox Sports can confirm
the Dragons directors discussed moving on McGregor on Tuesday - along with his most likely replacement.
The answer is assistant coach Dean Young.
Maybe the directors looked at the draw and realised it was only a matter of time for Mary given their schedule over the next five weeks; arch-rivals Cronulla, the Gold Coast, the Roosters, Canberra and Manly.
The way they’re playing at the moment – like strangers as McGregor put it – the Dragons will be flat out winning one of those games.
Payout may have saved Mary
There is a view Mary is too hard on his emerging NRL players – Zac Lomax, Matt Dufty, Jason Saab, Tristan Sailor – and too soft on senior players like James Graham, Corey Norman, Tyson Frizell and Tariq Sims.
There’s a story from last year where McGregor intended to axe prop Jeremy Latimore until the old-school front-rower went and sat down in the coach’s office in Wollongong.
The end result was Latimore retained his position in the side.
The soft-serve waffle coming out of their new L-plate CEO might sound nice in a zoom meeting about marketing but in the hostile world of NRL CEOs, player agents, media and coaches he’s going to get barbecued.
Board room politics normally makes most NRL fans glaze over but in this instance it’s important to understand exactly how the decision-makers at St George Illawarra are hiding in the shadows.
There are eight directors on the Red V board – four from WIN Corporation and four from St George.
The St George District Rugby League football side of the board room is Peter Doust, Craig Young, Ralph Piggot and Peter Black.
The WIN directors are chairman Andrew Gordon, Andrew Lancaster, Craig Osborne and Graham Gulloch.
Doust – the one-time Dragons CEO famous for brining Wayne Bennett to the club – has recently returned to the board this year.
This is said to have unsettled the multi-millionaire boss of WIN Corporation and 50 per cent owner of St George Illawarra Bruce Gordon.
Gordon has been associated with the Illawarra Steelers since their inception into the old NSW Rugby League competition in 1982.
He’s now 91 and worth around $800 million.
Nothing happens on the WIN Corp side of the board room without his approval.
To terminate McGregor the board needs the numbers to be at least 5-3 but like in the old Wests Tigers days traditionally voting sits aligned with the St George four and the Illawarra four.
The question all Red V fans now want answered is how much longer for Mary?
McGregor keeps referencing how the Dragons finished one game shy of the game to get into the grand final in 2018 – which they did.
And they went down swinging in extra time against South Sydney in a field-goal shoot out.
But the more damning statistics now doing the rounds are the sequences of losing streaks during McGregor’s seven-year tenure in Wollongong.
McGregor holds the unwanted tag of the longest losing streak in the 21-year history of the joint venture club with seven consecutive losses from 2015.
More recently there’s another two sets of five consecutive losses last season when the Dragons finished 15th.
If the Dragons want a different result, some energy in terms of line speed and someone looking to intentionally rattle the opposition, the coach needs to shake-up his side like Bulldogs coach Dean Pay and Gold Coast coach Justin Holbrook did last week.
The young guns like Saab, Ford, Jacob Host and Billy Britain are surely due for a crack. They’ve got nothing to lose.
The reputation of one of the most decorated clubs in rugby league is already pulverised.
https://www.foxsports.com.au/nrl/nr...v/news-story/36fef3f6f9d63d075deaee7520adf854
