Unless Flanno can work a miracle, he will soon change his mind mainly because Hunt at 7 was a major cause of the below-par performance of our team.
At 7 we need an organizer, a thinker, a person who can read a game. We need a halfback who can feed the ball to players who are running from deep behind the line into holes with momentum.
Flanno has already identified the fact that our squad was unfit last season and that most players were regularly receiving the ball flat-footed. Service from our hooker and halves was a major problem. So, to rectify this it will mean shifting Hunt to a running five-eighth position or to hooker. Hunter has made it clear that he does not want to play hooker at the Dragons.
For it to work well at the Dragons, the team needs a dominant forward pack that can offload the ball in attack and be very brutal in defense. Flanno identified this and went after AFB to solve this problem but unfortunately was unsuccessful in obtaining his signature.
I still believe that there is management incompetence at the top level of the Football department and so, I'd say that Haran needs to go. I'd also say that recruitment is such an important area of an NRL Club and so, the idea of having one person handling recruitment and pathways is madness. My remedy would be to get rid of Millward, give Millard the pathways job only full-time, and hire a recruitment manager who can deliver a good sales pitch. He would also need to have a good team of scouts who feed him with potential signings.
Flanno will know what he wants and should be able to just rely on the recruitment team to advise him of who is available. Most importantly there should be long-term recruitment/retention plans developed with A and B options. No more knee-jerk decisions and plenty of 'ahead-of-time' execution delivered.
