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Just when we thought we had seen it all with BBQ-Gate, in-fighting and no-shows at the awards night, the St George Illawarra Dragons continue to be the gift that keeps on giving.
A recent member survey has sent Red V fans into a spin, with one of the questions suggesting options for a possible name change to the merged club.
While mergers never make both sides completely happy, there has always been a feeling among the Steelers fans that they copped the raw end of the deal on most decisions.
The only thing the two clubs had in common were their colours, and while that made it easy for jersey design, many from the Illawarra felt the joint venture was lop-sided, with many decisions favouring the original Dragons club.
This latest drama will not help make them feel any better.
The members were asked ‘which naming convention should the St George Illawarra Dragons use as their formal identity?’
There was the current title of the St George Illawarra Dragons, but then four new ones were put on the table – St George Dragons, Southern Dragons, Greater Sydney Dragons, or just simply The Dragons.
The club trains full-time in Wollongong and has recently launched plans for a Community and High Performance Centre at the University of Wollongong’s Innovation Campus just to the north of the coastal city.
(Photo by Mark Kolbe/Getty Images)
Fans from the Kogarah end of the joint venture are also furious that the club would even consider removing St George from the name. The St George brand is one of the most famous in Australian sport on the back of the 11 straight premierships won by the team from 1956-66 containing future Immortals Reg Gasnier, John Raper, Graeme Langlands and Norm Provan.
Other questions raised on the survey marked if the fans believed the ‘era of the St George and Illawarra Steelers has passed and we must now look to the future as one’, if they liked the current logo, how they as fans of the club refer to it, and if they agreed of disagreed with these three statements –
– The St George and Illawarra fanbases have a lot in common
– The club’s combined histories are there to guide and inspire us
– The club must unite under a single identity to be truly successful
Angry reactions were quick to appear on social media once news spread of the possible name change, with fans from both sides upset.
There has always been an uneasy truce within the merged club, right from when the St George Dragons and the Illawarra Steelers joined forces back in 1999.
The merged club has worn the traditional St George strip for most of its existence, occasionally wearing a Steelers design but for the most part has used a “blood and bandages” throwback to the Saints as its secondary strip or a mainly red one which is not representative of the Illawarra’s former uniform.
A dozen players from the two clubs formed the first team that year and with the club receiving salary cap relief as part of the incentive to merge, the star-studded team featuring Paul McGregor, Anthony Mundine, Nathan Blacklock, Shaun Timmins, Lance Thompson and Trent Barrett made it all the way to the Grand Final before they were beaten on the bell by Melbourne.
St George Illawarra won the NRL title in 2010 with coach Wayne Bennett at the helm but even then, that achievement was questioned – was it the first premiership of the new entity or the 16th title for St George? The Steelers did not win a premiership in their time as a standalone club from 1982-98.
Steelers international Rod Wishart in 1998. (Photo by Getty Images)
The St George side of the club has been the financially stronger for most of the joint venture while Illawarra have produced the majority of players from their much-bigger junior nursery. The Steelers were bought out by the WIN corporation in recent years to make them a more financially viable partner in the combined club.
On the field the club has struggled since the premiership – St George Illawarra have won just one playoff game in the past 11 seasons.
Veteran coach Anthony Griffin is under pressure to keep his job as the club looks to avoid a fifth season in a row of missing out on the finals.
The idea to change the name while they are currently surrounded by so much recent hostility is just ridiculous.