The question on St George Illawarra Dragons fans’ lips right now is can the Dragons match the 2014 Premiers and 2015 Auckland Nines winners in this year’s Charity Shield?
South Sydney Rabbitohs coach Michael Maguire has said their upcoming showdown with the Dragons in the Charity shield took precedence, for the moment at least, over the World Club Challenge and he is vowing to field a full strength team. For Souths the Charity Shield is a good chance to give the full team a run in preparation for the World Club Challenge.
The Rabbitohs showed no mercy in the Nines and the Dragons should not expect any in the Charity Shield. This is something many Dragons players have discovered in recent years, especially Josh Dugan, who missed the first five weeks of last season after injuring himself attempting to tackle a rampaging Sam Burgess.
The key to this match will be the forwards battle, with a Souths pack missing key forwards Burgess and Ben Te’o going up against the Dragons’ generally lighter pack that is often maligned as ‘soft’.
Souths’ pack, now led by George Burgess, will be full of confidence as they go up against a Dragons pack that is an untried mixture of veterans and offseason acquisitions.
Many of the Dragons forwards were on display in a trial against the MacKay Cutters on the weekend while the rest were in Auckland for the Nines. The Dragons managed narrow wins against Manly and the Eels in Auckland but narrowly missed out on the quarterfinals.
The Dragons slim trial win 14-12 against the MacKay Cutters was as sloppy as the scoreline suggests. It has been described as “not pretty” and could not have inspired much confidence in Dragons assistant coach Dean Young.
Young said, “We’ve trained really hard this pre-season, done a lot of contact in that training but nothing’s like playing a game. We made plenty of mistakes, there’s no doubt about that, and our execution was a bit off but it’s our first trial and I knew it wasn’t going to be perfect. It’s going to take time.”
The Dragons have retained most of their frontline forwards from last year in captain Ben Creagh, Englishman Mike Cooper, Samoan international Leeson Ah Mau, NSW Origin regular Trent Merrin, Jack de Belin, hooker Mitch Rein, Dan Hunt, Tyson Frizell, Will Mathews and Joel Thompson.
The problem for the Dragons is that most of these players are second rowers who are unable to do the hard work up front that is required of a prop. This is where the Dragons struggled last year and they haven’t really filled this need for 2015.
Veteran prop George Rose comes fresh to the Dragons after what he describes as a “crap” year last year at the Storm and will presumably be used off the bench.
Other contenders for Dragons props include the inexperienced heavyweight Rory O’Brien, ex-abattoir worker Rulon Nutira and Dragons junior Shannon Wakeman. St George Illawarra are also hoping that Russell Packer will also have his contract ratified by the NRL prior to the start of the season.
Adam Tuimavave-Gerrard comes as a second rower from the Warriors junior ranks and lock Jake Marketo returned to the Dragons with a try in MacKay. Heath L’Estrange appeared to be an interesting signing but he played well at hooker at the Nines and could add an extra dimension to the Dragons attack.
Unfortunately it looks like the Dragons will still be relying on last year’s stand-in front rowers, with no other viable solution on the cards. Look to see Creagh, Cooper, De Belin and Frizell spending a lot of time in the front row during the Charity Shield.
The Dragons appear to have fewer holes to fill in the backline, despite the offseason departure of Brett Morris. The halves pairing of Benji Marshall and Gareth Widdop will look to build on the combination they started to form during the back end of last season.
In positive news for the Dragons, Rabbitohs halfback Adam Reynolds is under an injury cloud after injuring his hamstring in Auckland.
While the halves paring is set, the rest of the Dragons backline is far from settled. Dugan returns to fullback after filling in at centre last year for the Dragons and NSW Origin while New Zealand international winger Jason Nightingale seems to have a mortgage on one wing spot and Eto Nabuli may have claimed the other wing spot with an impressive three-try effort at the Nines.
This leaves the two centre spots up for grabs between Peter Mata’utia, Charly Runciman and Dylan Farrell, who were all used last season. Other candidates for the centre position include Dragons junior Euan Aitken and ex-Storm, Warriors and Queensland Origin centre Dane Nielsen, who scored a try against MacKay. I favour Runciman and Nielsen to fill the spots but McGregor was a centre so he will no doubt have strong views on who to select.
Souths look too strong all over the park and they are full of confidence so it is hard to see the Dragons being competitive. I tip Souths to get out to a big lead with their big stars on the field before they give the big boys a rest.
So this will be a serious test of the Dragons’ defence in the first quarter, particularly with an untried backline and still lightweight forward pack. McGregor expects the team to perform, so look for big changes from the bench if they are not competitive early on.
Benji Marshall has demonstrated that he has the capability lead the team around the field, with Widdop providing another foil to keep the pressure off him. Watch out for the combination Benji developed at the Nines with Nabuli. Look out for Shannon Crook, who scored one try and set up two more with cross-field kicks.
I am looking forward to seeing big George Rose rolled out, but the Dragons need more than big George to solve their prop problems.
The Rabbitohs were the winners in last year’s Charity Shield, 38-20 after winning 28-10 in 2013 and it’s hard to see the result being much different this year, but there is always hope when Benji is playing.
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