Time to restructure the JV

[OneEyedDragon]

Nobody is denying the success of the dragons back when the world was black & white. It’s an important part of the club culture.

Possibly due to the rich nursery of talent from the south coast who made their way up the Bulli pass to help deliver this. But that’s beside the point.

I’m comparing the record books from the period in time where there were two separate clubs..

The unfortunate result is neither side won a title whilst they went it alone.

1982-1998 is the only real time that a true comparison of results can be done, as without a Time Machine it’s physically impossible for the Steelers to have done anything before then..

You just keep blathering on with your irrelevant arguments Muz. I won't comment on any of them again. I will say that if the St George Illawarra team had made 4 Grand Finals since their formation, a lot of this unhelpful infighting would not be happening. Indeed, if our team made a Grand Final I would be very happy!

 

[muzby]

You just keep blathering on with your irrelevant arguments Muz. I won't comment on any of them again. I will say that if the St George Illawarra team had made 4 Grand Finals since their formation, a lot of this unhelpful infighting would not be happening. Indeed, if our team made a Grand Final I would be very happy!

Don’t make me tap the sign..

 

[OneEyedDragon]

Don’t make me tap the sign..

You do what you want man. I've already used the "tap" on a few trolls from other clubs.

 

[muzby]

You do what you want man. I've already used the "tap" on a few trolls from other clubs.

What were their thoughts on the sign?

 

[OneEyedDragon]

What were their thoughts on the sign?

Maybe we are talking about different things? I thought you were talking about tapping on the user icon and choosing "Ignore".

 

[muzby]

Maybe we are talking about different things? I thought you were talking about tapping on the user icon and choosing "Ignore".

 

[Dragonssupporter]

Mu

You view losing something as “success”? That is a strange take on things.

Pulling on my high school debating trousers:

“The Oxford dictionary defines success as the accomplishment of an aim or purpose”

The key word being accomplishment.

For example. 1999 wasn’t a successful year for the JV.

But 2010 was.

What was the difference?

Muzby- i see by your writings that pulling on a pair of trousers probably is the highlight of your day. However back to relevant points- every team tries to win the Grand Final, but only 2 get the chance (St George many times,Illawarra 0 times) . But coming 2nd is a damn side better result than coming 14th, or 15th or whatever. So yes we didnt win in 1999 but we didnt come last either. Coming 2nd to me is still a great result, but ive grown up following a club thats had many successes over the years, unlike the one you always quote, which in your terms had 0 successes. You cant always win, but coming close to winning is what i call a success. Trying to win is the aim, therefore it is success-QED

 

[muzby]

Mu

Muzby- i see by your writings that pulling on a pair of trousers probably is the highlight of your day. However back to relevant points- every team tries to win the Grand Final, but only 2 get the chance (St George many times,Illawarra 0 times) . But coming 2nd is a damn side better result than coming 14th, or 15th or whatever. So yes we didnt win in 1999 but we didnt come last either. Coming 2nd to me is still a great result, but ive grown up following a club thats had many successes over the years, unlike the one you always quote, which in your terms had 0 successes. You cant always win, but coming close to winning is what i call a success. Trying to win is the aim, therefore it is success-QED

Who bothers with pants these days? One of the positives coming out of the pandemic is the requirement only to dress what is visible to the person on the other end of a zoom call..

Infact I’m naked right now..

But let’s stick to the topic at hand..

The mentality of viewing a loss as somehow being successful results in accepting mediocrity as the standard..

And this is what is holding the club back right now..

Premierships are what we should be aiming for.

It’s not good enough just to be happy to be playing a game..

 

[OneEyedDragon]

Who bothers with pants these days? One of the positives coming out of the pandemic is the requirement only to dress what is visible to the person on the other end of a zoom call..

Infact I’m naked right now..

But let’s stick to the topic at hand..

The mentality of viewing a loss as somehow being successful results in accepting mediocrity as the standard..

And this is what is holding the club back right now..

Premierships are what we should be aiming for.

It’s not good enough just to be happy to be playing a game..

So you are saying that 16 teams will be "unsuccessful" this year? OK, so we all feel better, as the dragons are performing as successfully as 94.1% of the teams in the NRL. Please!

 

[Parko1310]

Can we talk about the real issue? We all support the same club, a club in the shit. This board needs to go, absolutely nothing will change with a new coach and their lack of vision is damning. Some will be happy in the short term with a new coach, before they realise nothing's changed yet again. The people at the top are the issue, and along with the tigers we have the most shambolic board in the competition. I call for a protest regarding the board at the next home game in the Gong against the dogs. Some may not believe it, but nothing is going to change until the Gordon's and the likes of Doust are out of this club. Who of the coaching candidates is going to deal properly with the mess that is this board? I for one am not willing to wait for all the traditionalist, in-fighting pricks on our board to pass on so that we have a chance of success again. The Dragons are a club built on the foundations of success. Until us as fans unite against them, they will continue to rule at the top with little to no accountability. Think about it, everyone knows how bad the board are, yet we always seem to unite against the coach first, we only mention how bad the board is with no action taken. It's time for them to go too.

 

[muzby]

So you are saying that 16 teams will be "unsuccessful" this year? OK, so we all feel better, as the dragons are performing as successfully as 94.1% of the teams in the NRL. Please!

Yes, I can confirm that your maths are correct 16 teams will not win the premiership & therefore be unsuccessful in achieving this goal.

There is a reason why our 16 premierships are so special to supporters…….

 

[OneEyedDragon]

Yes, I can confirm that your maths are correct 16 teams will not win the premiership & therefore be unsuccessful in achieving this goal.

There is a reason why our 16 premierships are so special to supporters…….

I think your definition of a "successful year" is far too narrow. Maybe I am alone in these thoughts, but:
I would think it is a successful year if the dragons made the 8 finalists, a VERY successful year if they made the semi finals, an EXTRAORDINARILY successful year if they made the grand final, and a SUPREMELY successful year if they WON the grand final!
Am I too easily pleased? Or are you being deliberately difficult?

 

[Dragon David]

Can we talk about the real issue? We all support the same club, a club in the shit. This board needs to go, absolutely nothing will change with a new coach and their lack of vision is damning. Some will be happy in the short term with a new coach, before they realise nothing's changed yet again. The people at the top are the issue, and along with the tigers we have the most shambolic board in the competition. I call for a protest regarding the board at the next home game in the Gong against the dogs. Some may not believe it, but nothing is going to change until the Gordon's and the likes of Doust are out of this club. Who of the coaching candidates is going to deal properly with the mess that is this board? I for one am not willing to wait for all the traditionalist, in-fighting pricks on our board to pass on so that we have a chance of success again. The Dragons are a club built on the foundations of success. Until us as fans unite against them, they will continue to rule at the top with little to no accountability. Think about it, everyone knows how bad the board are, yet we always seem to unite against the coach first, we only mention how bad the board is with no action taken. It's time for them to go too.

I was listening to John Laws this morning and he had a lot to say about the Dragons, particularly Griffin and the Board.

He basically said that when Griffin was first appointed in 2021, he wasn't too pleased with that decision as he thought that Hook wasn't the type of coach that he could see was going to get us in better shape and of course this has been the case. He said that he thought that a new coach should be appointed and added that definitely something needs to be done about the Board.

 

[muzby]

I think your definition of a "successful year" is far too narrow. Maybe I am alone in these thoughts, but:
I would think it is a successful year if the dragons made the 8 finalists, a VERY successful year if they made the semi finals, an EXTRAORDINARILY successful year if they made the grand final, and a SUPREMELY successful year if they WON the grand final!
Am I too easily pleased? Or are you being deliberately difficult?

Each of those steps increases your chance of success (can’t make the finals if you don’t win enough games, can’t make the grand final if you don’t make the final etc)

But there’s only one name put on the trophy each year* and that’s when you’ve succeeded.

*Unless it’s 2007 or 2009 of course.

Suck it, Storm.

 

[Carrera28]

The board is appointed by two different bodies the WIN Corporation and the St George Leagues Club.

The WIN Corporation is difficult to influence short of buying it. However the St George Leagues Club is member run and each of us can join that body and have a say in who is appointed as the Dragons board members and the Chairmen (also appointed by St George Leagues Club). I strongly encourage everyone to become a voting member of the Leagues Club and start exercising your influence with the actual body that makes decisions. You can be an interstate member so there is nothing stopping every supported actually having a vote.

To my mind its crazy that John Howard is not a board member. Like or hate him but he loves the Dragons and he would be able to open doors in government and commercial spheres and his influence while the Coalition was in Government in NSW and Federally would have been immense.

It's time that we got a board that had big hitters from the commercial world on it who can set an expectation of performance and a winning culture.

Join the club and start pressuring them to appoint better quality board members

Plus lets agitate the Gordon's to either open their wallets and invest in the club or sell their share to the Leagues Club (who are willing to buy it) and stop having a joint venture. One part of the JV, WIN, needs to be less passive and one part, St George Leagues, needs to up its professionalism.

 

[DeathBlooms]

We need to get rid of Illawarra. They only exist now because of the Win Corporation.

The St George leagues club is bringing in most of the money for the club these days.

Remember there was 2 big offers to buy our the Illawarra shares and Doust did a dodgy backroom deal with the Gordon's for far less money.

There's lots of infighting within the board members.

Tigers are in the same boat. Tigers have no money at all and it's all funded by West League club.

Both clubs have similar culture issues due the us vs them within the corporate enviroment.

 

[possm]

Illawarra and Cronulla Sutherland should never have been encouraged let alone allowed to split away from the mighty St George. Greedy and jealous Clubs who were sick and tired of seeing the mighty Saints win year upon year for 11 consecutive seasons win the competition did all that they could in order to stop their success:

Introduce a 4 tackle rule to negate the dominant role our big forwards possed.

Encouraged Cronulla Sutherland and later Illawarra to split from father St George in order to weaken their strength.

These days, conspire to weaken the Dragons by lumping them with a failed Illawarra Club and failing to support the code in the St George district.

 

[possm]

We need to get rid of Illawarra. They only exist now because of the Win Corporation.

The St George leagues club is bringing in most of the money for the club these days.

Remember there was 2 big offers to buy our the Illawarra shares and Doust did a dodgy backroom deal with the Gordon's for far less money.

There's lots of infighting within the board members.

Tigers are in the same boat. Tigers have no money at all and it's all funded by West League club.

Both clubs have similar culture issues due the us vs them within the corporate enviroment.

And Manly only started to move forward again after cutting North Sydney their JV.

 

[This Year?]

I see Muzby has bagged out yet again.
Deserves a commemorative shirt

 

[Carrera28]

No dodgy back room deal was done by Doust, people may not like Doust but he did not do a dodgy deal.

Doust tried to get Illawarra RLFC (who were drowning to debt) to get them to sell their JV shares to St George Leagues Club. The decision to sell the shares to WIN Corporation was made by the Illawarra Steelers RLFC, they did not want to sell their shares back to St George Leagues because they were worried about Illawarra district being forgotten by the new owners.

The article posted by Andrew Webster in the Sydney Morning Herald a few years ago that accused the JV of doing dodgy deals was long on vitriol but short on facts and he quoted a disguntled potential buyer without verifying publicly available facts or checking whether the disgruntled party was in fact telling the truth, which he was not.

The St George Illawarra Dragons RLFC is not a publicly listed company, therefore who shares were sold to is a decision for the owners of those shares (Illawarra RLFC) not the board or CEO of the St George Illawarra Dragons subject to any ownership covenants. It does not have to follow a tender or public offer process and the sellers, Illawarra RLFC, were not, subject to any covenants, required to sell to the highest bidder.

In all likelihood the best the other shareholders, ie St George Leagues Club, might have in any covenant is a veto power over who the shares are sold to. Given that WIN was a major sponsor and compared to Illawarra RLFC is not drowning in debt enforcing such a veto to prevent WIN from buying the shares when Illawarra RLFC had made it clear that they would not sell their shares to St George Leagues Club would have been disingenuous at best.

As part of the new ownership arrangement Doust arranged for both St George Leagues Club and WIN to have equal board members but critically for the Chairmen to be appointed by St George Leagues Club meaning that in the event of a deadlock on the board the Chairmen has the casting vote. So at least coming out of the sale the Chairmen no longer rotates between the two owners and the Red V has majority vote.