It’s dire at the Dragons and there is no saving Flanagan, sadly
Opinion
What are they waiting for?
Things are not going to improve on the field at St George Illawarra anytime soon if left as they are, and the fans won’t tolerate what’s going on for much longer.
Four straight losses to finish season 2025, backed up by six straight losses to open season 2026, is untenable for almost everyone involved – coaches, players, staff, and even the board, despite the financial health of the club.
Worse still is the appalling lack of communication from the club to its fan base, who are expected to turn up, hand over their hard-earned, and cop what’s happening.
Then again, what can the club say about its football team? We’re rubbish, our recruitment has been rubbish, the future is bleak, and more than likely the Brisbane 3032 Olympics will come and go before we’re competitive again unless a superstar halfback and about five other prime State of Origin standard players fall out of the sky?
We’ve all been to this rodeo before, and in every circumstance, a club in a predicament as bleak as this needs a circuit breaker. That is often the sacking of the coach. Rightly or wrongly.
Shane Flanagan is in his third year as coach of the Dragons, and it’s gone downhill. That’s a great shame, as he can coach. Let’s not forget he won the 2016 premiership with the Sharks.
The style of play Flanagan excelled at coaching, built off power forwards like Paul Gallen and Andrew Fifita, has long left the game. Ten years on, speed kills. The Sharks averaged 21 points per match in 2016, the Broncos averaged 28.5 last year. The high-flying Panthers are averaging 34.5 points per game this season.
In fact, the Dragons (14.3) and Raiders (19.2) are the only two teams averaging less than 20.
The game is changing – fast – and coach Flanagan has struggled to assemble a roster to suit it. One poor roster can quickly become a cycle as clubs are then forced to throw money and lengthy deals at players past their prime in a bid to rectify the situation, no matter how big the hearts of those players are. We’re talking about Clint Gutherson, Valentine Holmes, and Damien Cook here.
With the new six again rules creating a pace of play and point scoring capacity we’ve never seen the likes of, the game quickly passes you by. Both players and coaches.
In 2024, under Flanagan, the Dragons flirted with the eight, finishing 11th. Then late last season, around the same time he signed a contract extension through to the end of 2028, things started falling to pieces.
They finished 15th with eight wins and 16 losses and began a losing streak of 10 games over the end of last season and the start of this one.
Humpty Dumpty needs to be put back together again. A root-and-branch reset is required.
A lightning rod for fans has been Flanagan’s reliance on his son Kyle at halfback. This has come at the same time as other halfbacks have either left the club or been cast aside.
Flanagan last week blamed the dire halves situation on Ben Hunt walking out. But from the moment he abused Hunt in the sheds post-match late in season 2024, all caught on camera, Hunt’s time at the club was over.
At the time, many commentators, including Flanagan’s premiership skipper Gallen, said it was nothing but a media beat-up.
The abuse of Hunt wasn’t nothing. It was something, and now Flanagan blames Hunt for walking out. Well, why did he walk out? Public dressing-downs of senior players are rarely healed.
The Dragons take on the Rabbitohs on Saturday evening as rank outsiders. But this competition is so topsy-turvy, they may well win.
But what will one win mean? Nothing.
Whether you like Flanagan or not, the players need to hear a different voice.
Just as Manly’s players obviously did. How else can you explain the three wins on the trot under Kieran Foran after three straight losses to start the year saw Anthony Seibold shown the door?
If you went back and watched Manly in the second match of the season at Brookvale, you can understand why they needed a new voice. Against the Knights on a beautiful Sunday afternoon, you could only wonder what they had been doing all off-season.
One thing Dragons fans won’t cop is a woeful effort in the annual Anzac Day match at Allianz Stadium against the Roosters next Saturday. It is their biggest home and away fixture of the season, and it means much more than just two premiership points.
After that, the Dragons have a bye, which the board could say is a logical place for a decision to be made when heads can cool.
A strong argument can be made that boards should never entertain short-term fixes. But this isn’t any ordinary situation. They should take any fix they can get.
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Neil Breen is the national sports editor and a Walkley Award-winning journalist.Connect via X.