Last night’s landfill match at Win Stadium proved once again the Dragons are as potent as a potato gun with the safety switch on.
Their matches have now truly earned ‘appointment viewing’ status. Whenever they play, you make an appointment to have your eyes lanced.
The safety-first 12-8 loss to the Broncos in the sludge was their fifth consecutive loss and 51st consecutive percentage-based borefest, a result which now officially classes them as a clinical tranquiliser on the Medicare pharmaceuticals register.
Despite the wonderful news that this now prices the Saints at $5.50 to pension card holders, it is a miserable result that writes the latest chapter in the club’s unending funk that has their heavily-invested supporters fed up.
The weekly hell of watching their stoned attack is why fans have begun protesting for tactfully-implemented strategic reform. They’re demanding club hierarchy produce a fresh vision that will provide the planks for a better future, or alternatively, a boundless barrage of sackings and poachings.
As a supporter base who wants it all and an extra 15 per cent, following last year’s encouraging season with a catatonic 2016 has them particularly ravenous. As a result, their demands have been wide-ranging and mostly bananas.
Sack the coach and sack the CEO, sack the coach and make him CEO, sack the CEO and make him coach, sack the CEO and move on from Wayne Bennett’s style, sack the CEO and return to Wayne Bennett’s style, and best of all, merge with Cronulla and call the team Cronulla, and while you’re there, sack the CEO.
But to their caterwauling fan-base, here is some advice from someone outside of the club with no vested interest or feel for the organisation’s culture.
Even though you are unsettled by the early stages of irrevocable damage that is slowly playing out in front of you, you should wake up to yourselves.
Any Dragons fans wailing about hardship are simply being greedy and ungrateful. If they can’t see why, here is some perspective on genuine poverty and woe.
Put simply, if Parramatta are the Titanic, the Knights are Krakatoa and Souths are The Bunker, then St George’s predicament is like your Kit Kat becoming stuck in a vending machine.
Compared to the competition of box-office bumbling bonehead boners around them, the Dragons are the soft disaster story of 2016.
Like their Spam sets-of-six, St George Illawarra’s sob story is drearily ho-hum.
Sure, they’re a bit short on cabbage and they’re repellent to free agents. Of course, they’ve got blokes showing more fight on the streets than in the wrestle, and there’s a cultural issue with blokes recklessly caressing NRL staff members. Granted, there’s Benji Marshall on the fifth and last.
But besides this, the bulk of their plot line is about actual football matters, most notably an offensive structure as offensive as a shoe full of Parmesan cheese.
Regrettably, their gripes are just so ‘on-field’ and ‘lawful’, and in this rich climate of elite frippery, it’s simply not up to scratch.
If Saints people want to rattle the tin for charity and win their share of circulating sympathy, the entire organisation needs to show more effort at showing less effort, so eventually no effort becomes effortless. Once reached, that’s where you can really achieve some serious crapola.
Until then, their story will remain about as seriously concerning as dandruff and significantly lacking the dereliction of duty required to invoke change. Seriously, they are operating with a full board of directors. It’s almost laughable.
So to those surly Saints supporters, come back to us when your club attracts intervention from City Hall. Hit us up when your saviour defaults on a pact to go rogue Judas in a leopard print g-string. Ask for a shoulder when Tony Archer begins defending you on a weekly basis.
Pushing for change anytime sooner will be like trying to raise money for eczema awareness. Because this is rugby league, where the benchmark snafus are all-time and nothing changes until things turn totally bacterial.
Unfortunately for them, St George Illawarra’s 12th place, mathematically-alive season dotted with honest defence and the occasional redeeming win does not have the smouldering appeal of full-blown catastrophe.
Due to this, it will not be afforded the back page miles required to arouse a coercive campaign for change, especially while ever Jarryd Hayne continues to scratch his arse almost daily.
David
Guest
I have been biting my tongue so, so much about the Dragons, but after yesterday's game when they "only' just won really shows that they need to to do something straight away. If, as reported they are not changing the cattle for 2017, then they HAVE to change the coach - do the right thing and bring in a Dragon's outsider now!!!!!!
Anthony
Guest
What a heap of meaningless dribble.what a waste of time reading it.Very sad!!!
steveng
Roar Rookie
Not as a soft disaster story of 2016 as the Rabbitohs who have completely and utterly given up, the Dragons are a success story in comparison.
Soda
Guest
What about when you open your kitkat and it's broken against the grain? That is an empty feeling. I am hopeful that, although not this year, that the dragons will find form and become the cookies and cream kit Kat chunkee of the comp. that's a chocolate bar I would support
Sleiman Azizi
Roar Guru
It's a strange thing. I don't get it.
Bee bee
Guest
They have 8 fans? That's a staggering increase. Are they giving away free kit Kats with every membership?
scott
Guest
What, all 8 of them?
Smell the fear
Guest
The roosters have avoided a lot of attention and have won half the games of the dragons Their fans are now watching swans and rah rah and don't care
Smell the fear
Guest
Their forwards are under rated. Packer, cooper, frizell, leeson and de belin are pretty good
Smell the fear
Guest
Yeah, you can fund them
Smell the fear
Guest
Illawarra have no money and failed after 16 years. They have always been in debt
MAX
Guest
Oates and Marshall did a contra deal and it nearly paid off.
Bee bee
Guest
I think you will find the eels already bought those special boxes of kit Kats. The NRL likes to think it's clubs are using its vending machines. Trick is to find a nice business to buy your kit Kats for your players. Third party kit Kats taste great and no need for NRLs crapola vending machines.
scott
Guest
It's well enough run in comparison to our more noticeable basket cases. When your star player is videotaped urinating on a dog while the board is busy typing up fornal minutes of their plans to cheat the cap and probably commit any number of criminal offences; when a player is caught out with bikies in possession of drugs and then makes a sex tape while another player watches on; when your club boss gets drunk with the players and tells most of them they aren't worth a pinch of shit, except for his favourite pet of course - then you'll be poorly run. Until then the Dragons will remain the poor overlooked middle child of the NRL. And yes, fair cop, my last line was a bit petty. In my defence it's very hard to find a verb which rhymes with Eldridge.
The Barry
Roar Guru
I didn't think the point of the article was to bag dragons fans, that was incidental. It was more about clubs in crisis having an imperative to change while middle of the road teams can keep bumbling along because there's always someone far worse off getting nailed. They don't draw as much attention.
Muzz
Guest
I think the Broncos have bigger issues! Their star studded line up only just managed to beat a team without a pulse.
Jonthedentist
Guest
I think staying in the NSW cup team is a much better option. They play attacking football, they win games, the are exciting, they have structures in place. Coaching is better.
Matt
Guest
That's what is wrong with the article. Dragons fans frustrations are not just with the teams boring performance on field, the club is being run so poorly off it. I read today a player that has been told by his club that his no longer wanted would rather sit out his contract in NSW Cup than sign with the Dragons. There is numerous other off field issues too but the author of this article is implying everything is hunky dory off the field and fans should build a bridge. The article comes across as off the cuff and poorly informed.
Nick Ferris
Guest
And that would be a fair comment.
Nick Ferris
Guest
I have no problem with Dane writing articles. His premise of this article was a snipe at Dragons fans, for what he basically call whinging. Why? What is the point of the article. Many Dragons fans have a legitimate position of complaint against the way the club is coached and run. Any fan want success, and have a right to demand it, no matter what other club do. Scott, do you really think that a Dragon fan whould watch the way their team is playing and think, "oh well, it could be worse. Look at Parramatta and Newcastle.", just as there are no Bunnies fans giving a toss how badly the Dragons are playing when their team is losing games. As to you comment that the rest of the club is well run, this is incorrect. The club is in more than $4 million in debt, andrecruitment is poor. The team has to play at 5 home to make money. Go and have a look at the open letter Peter Doust wrote to the "members and stakeholders" and you will see a very defensive CEO. And as to your last comment. That's just being petty.