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Opinion
Three years ago, St George Illawarra were looking to rebuild in a bid to again become a premiership force so they took a punt on an experienced coach despite plenty of baggage from his two previous stints in the NRL.
Split Enz were wrong when they claimed History Never Repeats.
Three years later, despite the smouldering ruins from the failed Anthony Griffin experiment, the Dragons are considering employing another veteran coach who has also had two cracks at being an NRL coach, albeit with greater success but more significant red flags.
To be fair to Shane Flanagan, he created history by taking Cronulla to their first and only premiership in their 50th season of trying in 2016 and when it comes to the coach’s main task of getting notches in the wins column, he was successful 55% of the time during his 185 matches overseeing the Sharks.
But he was also suspended twice by the NRL, firstly in relation to the club’s peptides scandal and then for failing to comply with the conditions of his first season-long ban.
Ben Hunt speaks to his team during the Charity Shield thumping in Mudgee. (Photo by Mark Kolbe/Getty Images)
For a club like St George Illawarra, which has had a serious image problem in recent seasons after a string of off-field incidents, they would be taking a major risk by signing Flanagan for 2024 and beyond.
The 57-year-old’s coaching style is based around doing whatever it takes to achieve success. That is a double-edged sword – it means he ensures the players don’t take any short-cuts on the training paddock and are steeled for the task ahead.
But his Sharks sides were also notorious for pushing the envelope with the rules, not just with their physical style of play but gamesmanship like staying down for a penalty – Paul Gallen caught winking after one incident when he took a dive.
In recent years, Flanagan has had stints at the Dragons as an assistant coach and list management consultant before joining Anthony Seibold’s new-look coaching staff at Manly for this season.
If the Dragons signed Flanagan, it would be in search of a quick fix.
Shane Flanagan. (Photo by Ian Hitchcock/Getty Images)
Such are the problems with their roster, discipline and playing style, it’s going to take a long-term vision to get them back into regular top-four contention.
That’s when a younger coach with an eye for developing talent is needed. And the Dragons have two such candidates on their three-man shortlist who fit that bill in Dean Young and Ben Hornby after the club’s first option, Jason Ryles opted for the promise of succeeding Craig Bellamy at the Storm over a return to his hometown club.
A couple of decades ago before clubs got paranoid about hiding every last detail, media members were allowed to wander down to NRL training sessions to casually observe the players.
Nowadays clubs only allow those nasty media vultures a 15-minute allocation while the players warm up which gives you little to no actual information about who’s playing where or who’s carrying an injury.
St George Illawarra was always an interesting team in those days.
For a lengthy stretch in the 2000s under Andrew Farrar and then Nathan Brown, they were a team full of talent and diverse characters.
Dean Young could be in charge of the Dragons’ rebuild. (Mark Nolan/Getty Images)
The player with the biggest personality who always made his presence felt on and off the training field was Ryles.
But he would have been the last player you would have picked to become an NRL head coach – he was the guy joking around in the background, practising his sideline conversions after training and devaluing his enormous talent on the field with stupid penalties and arguments with the referee.
Young and Hornby stood out as players destined to be coaches. They were both extremely dedicated trainers, clever players on the field and not afraid to call out their teammates if they were not giving the same effort as they were, which was everything they had.
Wayne Bennett, who knows a thing of 1002 about coaching, had Hornby as his captain and Young as the heart and soul of their forward pack when St George Illawarra broke through to win the premiership 13 years ago.
The Dolphins mentor, speaking on Thursday as he finalised preparations for Friday night’s clash with Manly at Brookvale, advised the Dragons they couldn’t go wrong either way if they entrusted their team to Young or Hornby.
“They’re wonderful men,” he said at his captain’s run conference. “Ben had three or four years at South Sydney and has done a great job. Dean’s been up to North Queensland and done a great job. They’ve got the DNA in their blood, they’ve coached lower grades there.”
Not surprisingly he was in direct conflict with Seibold, who talked up Flanagan’s value as someone St George Illawarra should hire.
After the messy 2018 Broncos fiasco when Bennett was sacked and replaced by Seibold, there is still plenty of bad blood between those two.
Ben Hornby. (Photo by Mark Kolbe/Getty Images)
Hornby will be part of the South Sydney brains trust plotting against the Dragons on Saturday at Kogarah, Young was by Todd Payten’s side a few weeks ago when the Cowboys thumped them 42-22.
Not known for acting quickly or decisively, the Dragons head honchos need to do both to start a true rebuild for a team that has won just one playoff game since Bennett steered them to their 2010 title.
Caretaker coach Ryan Carr has done a decent job the past few weeks in ensuring the Dragons haven’t totally collapsed in a heap following Griffin’s sacking.
But they are still running last, favourites for the wooden spoon and no hope of landing any decent recruits in the off-season unless they pay well over market value, and that’s the kind of strategy that only leads to more pain.
There’s few things more meaningless than an interim NRL coach who is not going to get the job full-time – whichever way they go, the Dragons should try to get their new coach in this season to get started straight away.
And if they make the right choice, history won’t repeat and they can kick off a proper rebuild to finally get the club back into premiership contention.