Griffin hits new low with latest loss - and you know what comes next as Dragons reach untenable point

Untenable – uhn·teh·nuh·bl: (especially of a position or view) not able to be maintained or defended against attack or objection. Unable to be continued. 

For example, the St George Illawarra coach’s position is uhn·teh·nuh·bl.

Anthony Griffin earned the unwanted mantle of the least successful St George Illawarra coach in the joint venture’s 24-year history in last Sunday’s 18-16 defeat at the hands of Canterbury. 

If they lose by a big margin this Sunday in their Magic Round match-up with the Wests Tigers, they could be sitting at the bottom of the ladder 10 rounds into the season. 

Dragons head coach Anthony Griffin. (Photo by Matt King/Getty Images)

There are no more excuses left, even Griffin has had enough of hearing his chief defender, Ben Hunt, coming up with ill-founded reasons as to why the coach should not be punted, stopping the Dragons captain at the post-game media conference on Sunday with “he’s answered that question enough” when a reporter raised the topic. 

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The club has only had seven full-time coaches since the Saints and Steelers merged in 1999 and the loss on their Wollongong home turf to a severely depleted Bulldogs outfit dropped Griffin’s record to 22 wins from 56 starts.

He’s now below Steve Price’s 39.3 low watermark from his 2011-14 stint after the only St George Illawarra coach who hasn’t been shown the door, Wayne Bennett.

The decision to appoint Griffin at the end of 2020 was dubious at the time given his modest results with strong rosters at Brisbane and Penrith (both clubs made a grand final a year or two following his exit).

And the baffling call hasn’t aged well.

This year was supposed to be when the rebuilding team started to show the effects of Griffin’s long-term plan.

Unfortunately for him, it has. 

After finishing 11th and 10th in his first two campaigns at the helm, they have won just two of eight this season – over the Titans and Dolphins. 

Their simplistic playing style keeps them in the contest most weeks as they have only been smashed twice (by Brisbane via a late 10-minute flourish and Cronulla).

Jack de Belin tries to tackle Hayze Perham in Wollongong. (Photo by Matt King/Getty Images)

But when the game is on the line, they seem bereft of options. 

Trailing by two, they were handed a golden opportunity to steal victory on Sunday via a Dogs handling error with three minutes left – 30 metres out with a scrum in centrefield,
– they then passed twice to Zac Lomax to do his best,
– took a settler one off the ruck,
– spun it wide at a pedestrian pace which was snuffed out by the defence,
– another settler which turned into a half-chance when Josh Kerr offloaded but Jack Bird cut back into the defence,
– another medium-paced backline movement to the right which caused Canterbury few problems
– and then on the last play, Hunt hoisted a bomb as an after/only thought which Lomax fumbled and the Dogs ran the ball back upfield. 

It was a microcosm of their season. A snapshot of their past three seasons. 

With a combined margin of just 11 points from their past four losses on the trot, if you’re clutching at straws you could say the Dragons are not that far off the pace.

You could point to the fact that in all of those games, goal-kicking ultimately was the difference due to Lomax having a down year with the boot, particularly from out wide. 

A previously reliable kicker, who had been striking at 79.6% in his first five seasons, he’s managed just 23 of 38 attempts in 2023 at 60.5%.

(Photo by Jason McCawley/Getty Images)

So what does Griffin do? He’s dropped Lomax to the NSW Cup this weekend and selected a side that has just Moses Mbye, Ben Hunt and Jack Bird as the only players in the run-on side with a goal to their credit at NRL level.

Mbye has a career success rate of 68% and hasn’t taken an attempt in three years, Hunt has a slightly worse percentage and his last goal was in 2015 while Bird’s tally of seven from 10 over the course of 137 games hardly inspires confidence.

Jayden Sullivan, who has been named on the interchange, is the NSW Cup team goal-kicker when he’s out of Griffin’s favour but he has landed just 10 goals from four appearances in reserve grade this season.

Whether he’s goal-kicker or not, Sullivan should be starting in the halves alongside Talatau Amone.

Hunt is one of the best hookers in rugby league, which he’s proved at Origin and Test level, but because he’s been signed on huge dollars by the Dragons, and then extended his deal until the end of 2025, they have steadfastly refused to switch him into the No.9 jersey to allow their young playmakers to develop together with an eye on long-term success.

There is pre-game speculation that Hunt will switch to hooker after Moses Mbye starts the match there and then probably, but not definitely, switch to dummy-half with Sullivan combining with Amone in the halves.

Whether it will happen or not is up in the air but it’s long overdue.

The muddled thinking around whether the team is genuinely rebuilding around its nucleus of impressive young talent or trying to scrap and scrape its way into the lower reaches of the top eight has been an ongoing issue for the Dragons. 

They dodged two bullets in the off-season when they managed to convince Sulivan and Tyrell Sloan to withdraw their request for a release to stick around. A change in coach will undoubtedly mean no such requests are made in future.

Young forward Toby Couchman’s eye-catching start to his NRL career in recent weeks has been one of the few shining lights amid the doom and gloom.

Aaaaaand he’s also been dropped this weekend. 

Griffin was given a hospital pass before the season started when club management informed him that they would be exploring the market to see what other options were available for 2024 and beyond. 

His only faint hope of getting another contract was to get the team firing in the early rounds of the season. 

He hasn’t. The question now is when, not if, he will be relieved of his duties by that well used modern euphemism of a mutual parting of the ways. 

St George Illawarra should pay him all his contract money for the rest of the year whenever the axe does fall – it can serve as a reminder of the dangers of triggering a third-year extension when all signs point to no or at the very least, let’s wait and see (they exercised the option prior to the start of the 2022 season). 

The time has come for change, for long-suffering Dragons fans they may only have to wait another 80 minutes.