Register a free account today to become a member of the world's largest Rugby League discussion forum! Once signed in, you'll be able to participate on this site by adding your own topics and posts, as well as connect with other members through your own private inbox!
Good post as usual and great discussion. My hope moving forward is that Twiggy's financial backing puts us in the top echelon of clubs and back on top where the Dragons belong. How good would it be for the Dragons to be like the Panthers? Confident of any win and also of making the finals just about every year?
Yes, that would indeed be a great feeling every year. Got to believe that it will happen and it will.
That’s the model!
Great post. Along these lines as well, I have been thinking about how a very few teams have remained dominant over the past 5 or so years in the salary cap era. For all the rhetoric around the Roosters having “brown paper bags” etc etc, this isn’t necessarily true. My thoughts are that the salary cap is actually creating an uneven playing field and is advantageous for teams like the Panthers due to their strong pathways, and the Storm due to their strong culture and systems. Put simply the “have nots” are the teams, like the Dragons, who must pay top dollar for recruits to remain competitive. Meanwhile, the Panthers just continue to roll first graders off the production line to replace the guys that get a better offer somewhere else. Similarly, the Storm seem to have that knack (again, due to culture and systems) of developing discards into some of the best players in the comp. Hell, one of ‘em just won the Dally M.
Thanks mate, there is no reason why we cant have very strong junior grades. We just have ignored and poorly managed these grades with the wrong people for years. If you notice now we have enticed so many juniors from the Penrith camp, why because they can probably see a pathway at the Dragons rather than Penrith atm. We really have a limited time to make sure we dont F$#K up these next few years. If you were a halfback in the Penrith system you know you are not going to get to the NRL say for the next 6-8 years or even longer, come to the Dragons and make a name for yourself,,,because you want to be part of the Dragons not a mercenary for money.
The club got sold to the wrong people in the first place, and having Bennett there was a fluke and we F$#ked up that appointment as well. A ground up rebuild along with the COE is the best we can hope for now and pray like never before we get the right people managing the lot.
Great point. We complain about the salary cap on buying established players but forget that there is no limit on how much a club can spend on *finding and recruiting* young players.
Unfortunately under McGregor and Griffin we became a club that valued aging and many frankly "past it" players under the BS guise of "experience" instead of blooding and trusting our young players coming through, many of whom are now flourishing at other clubs. We're now paying the penalty for years of woefully bad decisions.
Can someone please clarify our situation with the junior base? I also thought we would have a massive junior base but have read comments from people associated with the club saying we do not have a very big junior base? Is the Illawarra technically our base or not?
St G + Wollongong/G7 is roughly the same size as Newcastle + Hunter region according to a post in a thread on LU.
I agree with you three and would like to say -
Everything you have said they are not, I dont know if it applies to all of them BUT !!!
Api also had a lot of brain explosions this year which resulted in him getting sinbinned quite a few times.
A lot through frustration I should imagine particularly from him being a premiership winner at the Panthers.
Not my thread, but here it is.
forums.leagueunlimited.com
forums.leagueunlimited.com
