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It looks like a long, rocky road to the end of the season for Dragons coach Paul McGregor.
It is true that the Dragons put on a more committed and compressed defensive display on Monday night against the Rabbitohs, but that of course left plenty of gaps out wide for their opposition to score.
At the centre of the problem were Gerard Beale and Josh Dugan, two fullbacks playing in the… centres. It appears that McGregor is expanding on former experiments of his good mate and predecessor, Steve Price.
Price was keen on playing second rowers in the centres and McGregor has just tweaked it a bit by using two fullbacks in that area of the park. This allowed him to bring another fullback, Adam Quinlan, into the team – a shock to everybody.
Now, Beale has played well for the Dragons this year, at least in attack, and he scored a try against Souths, but his defensive grasp of the centre position is not good enough. Souths exposed that weakness on Monday night.
Dugan tried hard but was equally out of place in the centres and the result was that the Dragons’ wingers saw no ball, including Peter Mata’utia – who was originally named in the centre and plays centre in NSW Cup alongside Charly Runciman.
I would suggest that before McGregor experiments with playing his surplus half backs in the centre, the Dragons could experiment with having centres in the centre. Benji Marshall played at half in this game, but he is still a work in progress.
The Dragon’s forwards were also a major problem.
Ben Creagh tried hard all game at prop forward against Souths but he was up against some big Souths forwards. Joel Thompson also played well for the Dragons, but the rest of the Dragons’ forwards were disappointing.
It’s about time McGregor had a closer look at the NSW Cup forwards, including recent import Matt Groat, who has seen no NRL time this year. But what team has McGregor picked for the must win game against the improving Sharks? You guessed it. He’s mirrored Price and stayed with basically the same squad – the good, the bad and the ugly – despite the result against Souths.
Dragons
1 Adam Quinlan
2 Peter Mata’utia
3 Josh Dugan
4 Gerard Beale
5 Jason Nightingale
6 Gareth Widdop
7 Benji Marshall
8 Ben Creagh (c)
9 Mitch Rein
10 Dan Hunt
11 Leeson Ah Mau
12 Joel Thompson
13 Trent Merrin
Interchange:
14 Tyson Frizell
15 Jack de Belin
16 Mike Cooper
17 Bronson Harrison
18 Shane Pumipi
20 Will Matthews
So what does McGregor expect against a Sharks side, have have even more incentive to win? An easy time?
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