It’s dire at the Dragons and there is no saving Flanagan, sadly
Idea
What are they waiting for?
If things are left like this at the St George Illawarra ground it will not improve any time soon and the fans will no longer tolerate what is going on.
Four consecutive defeats by the end of the 2025 season, backed by six consecutive defeats by the opening of the 2026 season, is an untenable situation for almost everyone, including coaches, players, staff and even the board, despite the financial health of the club.
To make matters worse, there is an appalling lack of communication from the club to the fan base; The fan base is expected to show up, hand over their hard-earned money, and report what happened to the police.
So what can the club say about its football team? We’re ridiculous, our recruiting is ridiculous, the future is bleak and unless a superstar halfback and about five other key State of Origin standard players fall from the sky will Brisbane 3032 Olympics come and go before they can get back into contention?
We’ve all been to this rodeo before, and in any case, a club in such a dismal state needs a circuit breaker. This usually means dismissal of the coach. True or false.
Shane Flanagan is in his third year as coach of the Dragons and things are getting worse. It’s a shame since he can coach. Let’s not forget that he won the 2016 championship with the Sharks.
The style of play that Flanagan excelled at coaching, drawing on powerful forwards such as Paul Gallen and Andrew Fifita, has long since left the game. Ten years later, speed kills. The Sharks averaged 21 points per game in 2016, while the Broncos averaged 28.5 points 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 teams averaging under 20.
The game is changing rapidly and coach Flanagan is struggling to assemble a squad that suits it. A bad squad can quickly become a cycle as clubs are forced to spend money and long deals on players past their prime in an attempt to remedy the situation, no matter how big the hearts of those players are. We’re talking Clint Gutherson, Valentine Holmes and Damien Cook here.
The game blasts you through with six new rules that create a pace of play and point-scoring capacity we’ve never seen before. Both players and coaches.
In 2024, under Flanagan, the Dragons flirted with the eight, finishing 11th. Then things started to fall apart late last season, around the time he signed a contract extension until the end of 2028.
They finished 15th with eight wins and 16 losses and began a 10-game losing streak at the end of last season and the beginning of this season.
Humpty Dumpty needs to be put back together. The root and branch need to be reset.
A lightning rod for fans has been Flanagan’s confidence in his son Kyle at quarterback. This coincided with other halfbacks either leaving the club or being sidelined.
Flanagan last week blamed the difficult halving situation on Ben Hunt’s departure. However, Hunt’s time at the club was over from the moment he abused Hunt in the post-match shed towards the end of the 2024 season, and it was all caught on camera.
Many commentators at the time, including Flanagan’s premiership captain Gallen, said it was nothing more than a bashing on the media.
Hunt’s abuse was nothing. It was a thing, and now Flanagan is blaming Hunt for abandoning him. So why did he go out? Senior players’ dressing in public rarely improves.
The Dragons will face the Rabbitohs on Saturday evening as outcasts. But this competition is so complicated that they can win.
So what does it mean for one person to win? Nothing.
Whether you like Flanagan or not, the actors need to hear a different voice.
Just as Manly’s players clearly did. How else can you explain the three wins under Kieran Foran after three consecutive defeats at the beginning of the year when Anthony Seibold showed the door?
If you went back and watched Manly in the second game of the season at Brookvale you can understand why they needed a new voice. On a beautiful Sunday afternoon against the Knights, you could only wonder what they were doing in the offseason.
One thing Dragons fans will not ignore is the woeful effort in the annual Anzac Day match against the Roosters at the Allianz Stadium next Saturday. This is their biggest home and away match of the season and means much more than just two winning points.
After that the Dragons are on their way out and the board might say this is a logical place for a decision to be made once heads have calmed down.
A strong argument can be made that boards should never consider short-term fixes. However, this is not an ordinary situation. They should get whatever correction they can get.
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Neil Breen is national sports editor and Walkley Award-winning journalist.Connect with: X.
