Is Paul McGregor the right man to coach the Dragons?

For the past two seasons I've predicted that this 2018 season would see Paul McGregor's planning come to fruition. Too many so called experts have been critical of "Mary", it's time for them to re-claim some self respect by honestly acknowledging his achievements. Last year 2017, St. George Illawarra showed a glimpse of what was to come, (it was not a pattern for this years performances). While Euan Aitken's absence through injury didn't help the cause, it was Gareth Widdop's ANZAC Day injury that marked the teams decline in the 2017 competition. Gareth Widdop is central to Paul McGregor's planned structure, you don't have to be a "Guru" to see that, anyone suggesting Gareth would be switched to fullback is an out and out idiot or mischief-making. All you pretend "Gurus" need to wake up, get over whatever it is you have against Paul McGregor and recognise his achievements as the architect of the renewed spirit at St George Illawarra. You all seem to be in awe of Bennett and Bellamy who have had top player rosters from day 1, when did Bennett ever successfully built a first grade team from scratch? -I can name 3 that he left in ruins. He made his reputation at Brisbane Broncos, when they were pretty much the Qld Origin team, -and on the back of Nathan Brown's efforts at St George Illawarra. "Hail Mary" a great player, a great coach, a great man and Coach of the Year 2018!!

Great to hear support for our coach as many have bagged him for far too long now. He has a better team this year and we have more experience for us to improve on last year. I think McGregor is still learning in the top grade and could develop into a good coach providing he learns from his mistakes. As a former top class player he deserves our support as he has not had the teams in place to be up there with the leading teams as yet. This year we should be in the top six with the team we have this year!

Blaming the coach is easy and statistics often lie, but the Dragons won 7-8 games straight at the beginning of 2017 and played some great attacking football. Euan Aitken was maturing rapidly and his speed, power and commitment was putting him into Origin contention before injury crippled his season and the Dragons fell away. Lafai always plays better with Aitken next to him. Vaughan was the best attacking prop in the NRL in those games and had real impact. De Belin is also a fine forward and really stepped up in 2017.Frizzell is test match standard of course. Dufty has the goods and will get even better when he adds size and guile to his explosive speed. By all means give the young forwards and backs a real crack at first grade as soon as any of the established players go off the boil or get injured. I'd like to see McDonald fully realize his potential. And why not give Widdop a few opportunities at full back, he was one of the best players in the World Cup playing there against the best of them and seemed to thrive on the space and creative opportunities he exploited well from the back. Hunt gets a fresh start should ensure that the outside backs get good clean ball and they have the ability to use it. If the Dragons can summon the unique passion behind the Red V this side can have an impact and I hope they will. Relentless negativity about the coach serves no purpose. Mary only has to stop the Dragons lapsing into the mindset of one off running and waiting for the miracle play from someone else. Players and teams win matches, not coaches and this team has the goods. Stop Whingeing and get on with it- SAINTS !

That's a long-winded way to say what we already understand: No, he's not - and if the Dragons don't replace him after this season they will be wasting a premiership window Millward's football department has potentially opened with that recruitment work over the past 2-3 years.

We can't all have Bellamy (although we got close at one stage). With anyone, be it player or coach, you look for improvement. Yes we missed the eight in 2017, but relative to expectation, it was a good year. That we ended up with the third best for and against after such an insipid 2016 is encouraging, but given the acquisition of a Hunt and Graham, another finals miss should spell the end of Mary's time at the Dragons.

Unless you have TPA's available so that you have about 6 Group 1 (in racing parlance) players and the rest are Group 2 or 3'ers, God himself wouldn't make much difference as the Coach. The Dragons WILL NOT look likely come the last month of this year's comp.

BA, you have got a very good point about three ex players becoming coaches at the Dragons, but as far as who mentored McGregor, it's hard to quantify how important that is. Bennett was at the Dragons for three years with Steve Price as his assistant, and didn't Price do a bang up job when he took over. Paul McGregor was coached by GrahamMurray, Andrew Farrar and David Waite. Except for Murray, none of these coaches had much skill in the backline, and as he was and outside back he himself wouldn't have much experience in organising a backline. His other coaching job with a "mentor" was assistant ot Steve Price. It was also no secret that when Bennet took over as caoch of the Dragons, he didn't want McGregor as assistant So where does he get his ideas for improving his coaching skills. My guess is experiencing it's self, and hopefully he CAN learn from his mistakes.

He's the man ! For now that is . They looked great when '17 kicked off . Attacking and stylish football the fans could barely recognize .I was a bit puzzled as to the timing of McGregors extension last season . I can't imagine why the pressure would have been on , even allowing for the amount of NRL coaching gigs that came up . It was going well .The Dragons season did seem to go off the boil the moment this happened . The Dragons have a great roster this season . They got the guys they needed . No excuses really . If they don't play finals footy in '18 I think plenty of questions will be asked and Macca might be walking the plank .

But,the game has changed,Des hasn't.His coaching of attack is now terrible. Once the NRL cracked down on obstructions,Hasler's coaching was exposed for the fraud that it is.Plus,he had such a great Manly team,just about anyone could have coached them to premierships then. No thanks and no way to Des coaching the Dragons.

A shame he ONLY got those opportunities cause he played for us,and NOT based on merit. Another person could have been given that opportunity,and done just as well or better,or worse (Of course we will never know..). Plus coaching low level means nothing,when the standard is so much lower than the NRL. This record of Mary means F ALL now.ONLY his current record matters NOW.We don't make the 8 in 2018,he should be sacked.

Spot on. In fact those "good" stats anger me and makes it worse - With such good stats,we still failed to make the 8,and failed the most important stat: Winning enough games to make the 8.

Yet the most important stat we failed at :( We didn't make the 8,and lost games in which we choked in and should of won,at the back end of the season egs: vs Souths (The worst one),vs Canberra,and vs Bulldogs.

We really blew our season in the game vs Souths. Led by 10 with 8 minutes to go,then stopped tackling and lost by 2 points.That was our season then.We choked,in such an important game,vs an average Souths whose season was already over.Weak and pathetic by the Dragons then.

Our season went down hill last season,the moment idiot and unmovable Doust rushed to re-sign Mary too early in the season. Last time we were great,we had a coach outside the club,it says it all ie: Bennett. While we either under achieved with a great roster,or were out right crap,with inbred non-coaches who only got the job from playing for the club egs: Brown,Price,and now Mary. Doust needs to go (He must have some good leverage,to continue in his position.),sadly as if. Along with our inbred nature of coaching ie: Bye bye Mary. Now we just need to find that coach,easier said than done.Certainly not Hasler,the game has changed,he hasn't,and his boring non-attack style of coaching will make things worse for us.Now to find that head coach,outside the club.....

Spot on. Inbred jobs for the boys,NOT based on merit,but based on playing for the club.

The broader question about coaches to me is does anyone have an accurate crystal ball which forecasts with any accuracy the fortunes of coaches? It's assumed that Bennett , Robinson, Arthur , Green and Bellamy are all going to do well because they 'can coach' . Chances are 2 or 3 out of that lot will be sacked within 5 years. Hasler, Cleary and Mcguire are recent examples.

Only time will tell if Mary can learn and coach. Me thinks he is still an awesome former player and now a super fit water boy. Many of his decisions to keep out of form an below average players in the side every week as well as the Jake Marketo factor sold me on that. Mary after several years could not see Marketo was an average park footballer at best and a liability, taking the spot from a young potential forward. Mary even went as far as to ask Freddy to give him a run in City NSW side as a favour. Speaks volumes when you have no contact, not even in a lower standard RL comp and find yourself playing union in Romania.

Those stats mean stuff all, we finished 9th. Poor finish, poor coach. If you cannot motivate your team to win against a team that has nothing to play for, and when your team can make the 8 with that win, then you belong in park footy. McGregor never drops players, sticks with the so-called experienced ones, no matter how poorly they play. If you look at last season, changes were only made due to injury or SoS, none due to poor form. McGregor is not an NRL coach. He could coach Melbourne to 9th!

Also, I'm not "divining the Manly game as a massive skew". I was using that series of games as being indicative of their season. They had several big wins - five 20+ point victories that I've pointed out, but then gone missing in games that they should have been expected to win easily.

"In essence that means you believe the ladder (which is worse than straight win/loss for obvious reasons) is the sole indicator of future performance which I (and any rudimentary analysis) vehemently disagree with." I'm not saying that at all. It would be the equivalent of me suggesting your point is that for and against is the sole indicator of future performance and as the Dragons had the third best for and against, they'll definitely finish third. I get the point of looking at differential to predict future success. What I've said all along, and you've agreed with is that you can't look at it by itself. The Dragons finished ninth and their for and against was the third best in the comp. That's an anomaly when 13 of 16 clubs finished with a differential within two places of their ladder position. It warrants looking into the reasons why, which are pretty clear with only the most basic review. Melbourne finished 1st / differential 1st Roosters 2nd / 4th Broncos 3rd / 2nd Eels 4th / 9th Sharks 5th / 5th Manly 6th / 8th Panthers 7th / 7th Cowboys 8th / 10th Dragons 9th / 3rd Raiders 10th / 6th Bulldogs 11th / 11th Souths 12th /12th Warriors 13th / 13th Tigers 14th / 14th Titans 15th /15th Knights 16th /16th Looking at for and against only, doesn't take into account the quality of the opposition. In an uneven draw that's extremely relevant. If top 4 / bottom 4 isn't the best way to do that, so be it but it needs to be taken into account somehow. The Dragons had the easiest possible draw against the bottom four clubs and one game off the easiest draw possible against the top four clubs. I'm acknowledging that ladder position isn't the be all, end all but surely you accept that the best teams finish closer to the top of the ladder and the worse teams at the bottom. It's an indicator. So, of course more games against the worse sides and fewer games against the better sides is a factor in how their differential finishes up. Not only were the bottom four clubs the bottom four in ladder position but in for and against. The Dragons absolutely should have had one of the best differentials in the comp. Racking up a cricket score and then going missing for 3-4 weeks isn't a recipe for success.