A mate of mine at the pub used to shake his head and mutter into his glass “you can’t put brains in statues” whenever he saw or heard someone in the bar carrying on like a galah.
Watching the Dragons attempt to play the sterile, uninspiring ‘statistics game’ over the past few seasons, I find myself muttering “you can’t put creativity into accountants”.
Paul McGregor is under pressure in 2017, so will he get more creative? Is asking McGregor to use his imagination tantamount to asking a fish to climb a tree? OK then, if that’s not fair, then how about introducing a little personality into the game.
Paul ‘Mary’ McGregor seems like a nice bloke, and the players seem to think so too, but his style is bland and it translates to the field. St George-Illawarra’s game is a safari suit, it’s sausage and mash without the gravy, it’s Penn and Teller without Penn, i.e. not much to speak of.
In defence of the fans, they weren’t expecting miracles, nor were they demanding much of anything beyond signs for hope.
I believe they would’ve been satisfied with indications that lessons from a frustrating recent past had been learned and the appropriate reforms were being attempted, even if not yet mastered.
Not long into the game it must have felt like watching Groundhog Day for Dragons fans as once again hope for the new season began to die, but they chose to skip the denial stage of this season’s death and move straight to anger.
My guess is that very soon Dragons fans will bypass the bargaining stage as well and head straight over to depression, which will be followed mid-season by the reluctant acceptance of their imminent fate.
Successful teams need to have to have a change of gears in attack and defence. They have to have a primary strategy and a contingency plan for all occasions. They must have high energy bodies in motion playing to patterns designed to create numbers and holes in defence as well as an effective kicking game, ball retention and committed defence.
St George-Illawarra can put holes in defence, but it tends to be their own.
McGregor needs to get creative, and soon. St George-Illawarra need the inspiration and energy that comes from an exciting new game-plan with bell and whistles, schemes and plots, angles and dangles and full of courage with a dash of chance.
The coming weeks could be McGregor’s last shot and he has nothing to lose by chancing his arm.
I for one doubt that St George-Illawarra have learned anything from recent years but if they have now might be a good time to show it, before the fans revolt and the heads roll.
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