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News is filtering through that Jamie Soward is leaving the Dragons early, before linking up with the Panthers in 2014. According to people that know things, it’s a matter of if, not when.
The Soward era, for all intents and purposes is over.
And no one at the Dragons, no players, coaches or supporters, seems to care.
It’s kind of understandable. Jamie Soward is incredibly selfish as a player, and had been killing time this season until he could get to Penrith.
He’s been playing poorly ever since Wayne Bennett left for Newcastle, and he just seems to be inherently unlikeable (although, “The Cat in the Hat” is one of the great rugby league nicknames).
However, when Soward is firing he is a very good player. His long kicking game is second to none, his long passing game is effortless and when he wants too his speed and light stepping can be a nightmare for any opposition.
The Dragons will miss Soward, weather they want to admit it or not.
Gareth Widdop is an excellent purchase for them, but a Widdop-Soward halves combination is far more preferable to a Widdop-Fien or Widdop-Drinkwater combo.
This is assuming they don’t sign Sam Williams. I pray daily to a variety of gods that Williams stays in Canberra. He’s going to become a very good player.
Soward has scored more points for St George-Illawarra than anyone else, played three games for NSW in 2011 (and if Bennett stayed at Saints he would have played more), almost won the Dally M in 2009 and played a big role in Saints winning the grand final in 2010.
So why have the Dragons faithful turned on him so vehemently?
Yes it must be frustrating to see a player care more about himself than the team, but has he already exhausted all his credit from the Bennett years?
While Soward must take some of the blame for the way the Dragons have performed over the past two seasons, and the way he has performed personally, he seems to have copped the brunt of the fallout behind the decline of the Dragons as they transitioned from Bennett to Price.
Soward has suffered greatly from a mass exodus of much of the pack that were so dominant during Bennett’s tenure, and they have never really been adequately replaced.
Jeremy Smith, Neville Costigan, Justin Poore, and Beau Scott are all gone.
Michael Weyman is as injury prone as he was in his Canberra days.
His fellow playmakers have all left. Ben Hornby, the rock on which the side was built, was put out to pasture when his time ran out.
The other creative player at the Dragons, Darius Boyd, followed Bennett to Newcastle. Gasnier is gone, Cooper is crocked, the only real weapons he has are Morris and Nightingale, and they are more adept at finishing chances than creating them.
It takes a very special player to successfully be the sole attacking threat for a football team. Better players than Soward have failed at the task.
It was easy to snicker when Soward signed for Penrith, but I expect him to be a success next year (if he gets there).
The key to getting the best out of Soward has always been about getting him focused and putting him in an environment in which his ego is either satiated or can be controlled.
Bennett was able to do so, probably because he is Wayne Bennett. Ivan Cleary was able to get the best out of the New Zealand Warriors, the flightiest, laziest and most enigmatic squad in the NRL. If Cleary can do that, then getting Soward to fire will be a cakewalk by comparison.
He’ll play behind a pack with Lewis Brown, Elijah Taylor, Sika Manu and Tim Grant. He’ll have Matt Moylan chiming in to take the pressure off, and he’ll be a mentor to the promising Issac John. He’ll be the boss, the big man on campus, but have enough of a supporting cast that the team will not live and die by Soward’s performance.
It’s perfectly understandable for Dragons fans to hate the way Jamie Soward quit on the club.
But they can’t forget his contribution to their latest era of success. In the end, his personality has made people forget his talent, and for him to slink away like this is a sad ending to his time at the club.
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