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Leading into the 2015 season, the St George Illawarra Dragons are on target to miss the finals for the fourth successive year. Let’s get to the real reasons for their lack of success in recent years.
I believe this club has long had problems and cracks in its hierarchy dating back to the early to mid 2000s, which has been papered over with a premiership in between.
Serious management issues first became apparent at the club when a then rookie Nathan Brown was gifted the head coaching role without any adequate expertise at the tender age of 29, becoming one of the youngest coaches in memorable history.
The club then persisted with Brown at the helm of one of the best rosters in the competition for six years without success, reaching a below par two preliminary finals.
Upon much discontent and parting ways with Brown, Dragons management were extremely lucky to stumble across super coach Wayne Bennett after he had fortuitously become available when leaving Brisbane and reneging on a handshake deal with the Roosters.
Bennett finally harnessed the potential of the club and took it to two minor premierships, a premiership and a world club championship in three years.
For supporters this success washed away all the frustration of the previous six years and seemingly put this proud club back on course for many years to come. But it was a stroke of luck and extremely fortunate for the administration and certain individuals running the club rather than good management.
Bennett was originally wanting a five-year deal, which was denied. So off he went after his contract expired. Job done, thank you, Wayne.
The club then inactively watched on as he handpicked recruits to follow him out the door. Sabotaged from within as enforcers Beau Scott, Jeremy Smith along with Adam Cuthbertson, Alex Mackinnon and Darius Boyd left for Newcastle.
Now coach-less and with a big hole in their roster, retirements of Dean Young, Ben Hornby and Mark Gasnier and others seemingly unwanted and let go has seen the Dragons revert back to the pre-Bennett days of trying an untested rookie coach in an aggressively professional sport.
There is now a theme of untried coaches that can be controlled and manipulated. Steve Price was thrown in the deep end with a job he was never going to survive, especially without the power and authority over the team which was being stringed like a violin from above.
Price, with unrest in the playing ranks and under pressure, isolated key playmaker Jamie Soward and put him on the outer – a State of Origin player and premiership winner two years earlier. A player the team should have been built around, Soward has now moved on to Penrith and singlehandedly dragged them into a preliminary final with a team of similar ability to St George at present.
This has led to two years with a rookie coach and no substantial recruitment or retention. A duo of mediocre halves were brought in along with some fringe first grade forwards of notably modest ‘size’.
Since then, Josh Dugan has been hailed as a major signing, but as good as he is he was sacked from Canberra and signed with Brisbane before misconduct had him looking for a third club in the space of months. Landing at St George as one of only a few clubs interested, again good fortune rather than good recruitment.
Gareth Widdop has turned into a marquee playmaker but was not signed as such coming from a Melbourne team full of stars and merely looking for a club where he could build his own reputation. Benji Marshall was moved on from Wests Tigers and failed in his attempt at rugby, and upon returning to league St George engaged in a bidding war with Cronulla for his services.
It is a sign of how far they have fallen in the short space since Bennett left. Marshall is on considerably big money for a man in his current situation. Amazingly, there is now a salary cap squeeze on a B-grade roster, where and on who has this money been misspent?
For a player of Brett Morris’ ability and standing in the club to be allowed to walk out the door is comical. The once abundant junior stocks St George rely upon is also being neglected. Junior players have been poached heavily in the last few years, promising future stars let go. This could be understandable if there was a strong input into their own recruitment.
Paul McGregor has since been put in charge, again a rookie coach. McGregor may still show he has the makings of a career coach and obviously has potential but it is hard to understand why he was re-signed so soon halfway through last season after taking over as caretaker for Price.
There was up to three months to look for a coach but yet another rookie was signed on a two-year contract well before the search had finished, or even started.
It leaves a lot of questions as to who is making these decisions, why they continue to do so and why they are not held accountable. This leaves me to assume there are deeper issues and factors throughout this club and it does not make for a positive outlook anytime soon.
St George are in for another mediocre year and more will follow until things are changed, starting at the top.
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