If somebody said two months ago that the St George-Illawarra Dragons would be finals contenders, I would have thought you were joking.
The Dragons had just sacked Steve Price after yet another poor start to the season, despite winning their first three matches and sitting atop the ladder after as many rounds.
The club didn’t appear to be making any progress since Price was handed control following Wayne Bennett’s departure for Newcastle at the end of the 2011 season.
They had finished a respectable ninth in his first season, before plunging to 14th place last year. Price had to act, and he did so by shopping around for some quality players.
But even after overhauling his playing list, of which few remain from the 2010 premiership, he still wasn’t getting the results. Consecutive thrashings by the Bulldogs and Parramatta in May seeing Price shown the door.
One of the recruits he successfully lured to Kogarah is Gareth Widdop, who is proving to be the buy of the year, a tag which many thought Ben Barba would wear after his move from the Bulldogs to Brisbane.
The English five-eighth has been the architect of many Dragons victories this year, and is a strong chance to become the club’s first Dally M Medallist since Trent Barrett played out of position at halfback for most of the 2000 season. Since being joined by Benji Marshall in the halves, which coincided with Price’s sacking, Widdop has only got better.
The club has won four of their seven matches since Paul McGregor took over as caretaker coach in May. This included defeating the pair’s old clubs, the Storm and Wests Tigers in Rounds 16 and 20, respectively. In both matches, Widdop produced performances that justified the Dragons luring him to the club from the Victorian capital.
Given the Tigers had thrashed the Bulldogs at home just last week, and the Dragons’ loss to the Sea Eagles at home, the Tigers entered this weekend’s match as favourites.
But just as they did in Round 1, the Dragons defied their underdog status to post another impressive victory and see McGregor further stake his claim to the full-time head coaching role.
The victory takes them to eight victories for this season, double the amount they had before Steve Price was shown the door two months ago, and one more than their 2013 total of seven.
Crucially, it keeps them in the race for a finals berth, but their poor percentage will conspire against them, especially with tough away matches against the Roosters, Raiders and Broncos in the final six rounds. They also have to travel to Newcastle in the final round, where the Knights will want to give their outgoing coach, Wayne Bennett, a winning send-off.
As it stands, the Dragons sit in 10th place on the ladder with 22 competition points, but with their differential at -37. The Cowboys, Broncos and Warriors also on this amount of points but have better percentages.
The match against the Broncos in the penultimate round could thus act as a mini finals play-off, assuming both teams still remain in calculations by then. Anthony Griffin’s side should be lucky that they are just hanging onto their place in the eight, especially with the Warriors having lost to Manly on Sunday.
What will count against the Dragons as they battle to keep their finals hopes alive is that the match will be in Brisbane, where the club haven’t won since Round 4, 2009.
Dragons fans will also be dreading the trip to Canberra in Round 23, where the Red V haven’t won since 2000. Try as they can, but bad luck always seems to strike each time the team plays in the nation’s capital.
Not even the fact that the Raiders are sitting second-last on the ladder and are out of finals contention will make the Dragons favourites when they meet in three weeks’ time. Ricky Stuart’s men always seem to lift for matches against the Red V.
But could this be the year the Dragons shake off their Canberra curse? And after appearing to go nowhere after Price was sacked two months ago, can they continue their push for a finals berth?
If they can overcome what will be a tough final six weeks of the season, who knows what might happen?
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