St George Illawarra great was unsure about taking coaching job – but then he went hard-core
Idea
Dean Young wasn’t sure.
The Dragons squad is so weak that taking over as interim coach could be fatal to his ambitions of becoming an NRL head coach.
Everything Young, the Dragons’ 2010 premiership hero, has done since the end of his playing career has revolved around coaching at the highest level.
He started with the Illawarra’s SG Ball in 2013 and graduated in 2014 to coach the Dragons under-20 team alongside Ben Hornby.
He was Paul McGregor’s assistant on the Dragons NRL team during the 2015 season.
To break the chains of his beloved club and further his coaching goals, he went to the Cowboys as an assistant for three seasons under Todd Payten.
He returned to St George-Illawarra in 2024 at the request of the now-sacked Shane Flanagan.
Coaching the Dragons in the NRL would fulfill an ambition he has harbored since deciding to coach towards the end of his playing career.
But getting to this point by temporarily accepting this role for the remaining 17 games of this season is fraught with danger. He boiled it.
The negatives are many. The team is not good enough to compete. He knows this. The club knows this.
Flanagan knew that, too, when he infamously declared his team couldn’t win the competition ahead of the first game of the season against the Bulldogs in Las Vegas.
After losing seven games in a row, further defeats under Young will open the door for the board to look elsewhere.
Board members are under as much pressure as anyone else in the club. Every move they make will be scrutinized, especially after chairman Andrew Lancaster lashed out at the media at a press conference announcing Flanagan’s departure.
With Flanagan, football manager Ben Haran and assistant coach Michael Ennis out of action, the pressure on them will be directed to others at the club by fans demanding answers and success.
Young’s appointment took days. Dragons officials began contacting potential interim coaches late last week ahead of the loss to the Rabbitohs. Such an approach was also made to Mark “Piggy” Riddell, who did not take it well due to his close friendship with Young.
He eventually stated that he would only play the role if Young was not considered.
Throughout the weekend, Young didn’t know if he wanted the interim role; He was aware that his coaching dreams could melt the dust by taking on the responsibility of a sunken ship.
On Monday he had steeled himself and decided to do it.
And when he made that decision, he took a hard line. His first move was to go to the family home of 20-year-old halfback Kade Reed on Monday night to inform the youngster and his family that he would be playing in the No.7 jersey against the Roosters on Anzac Day. It’s a pretty good start for a kid Flanagan wouldn’t have cast due to his age and preferred his son Kyle in the role.
Young later informed Kyle that he had fallen. The next item on the agenda came Tuesday morning when Ennis was informed that he was stepping down as assistant coach.
There was a new sheriff in town. These moves were Young’s statements that things needed to change.
He said this in his impressive speech to the media on Tuesday.
While these are visible changes at the club in a brutal week, there will be so much more.
The club has given former NRL coach Daniel Anderson the mandate to rebuild the squad and club legend Ben Creagh to run the football department. They face huge tasks.
Keaon Koloamatangi will join the squad as a frontline enforcer from the Rabbitohs next year. This is a good start.
But the forwards are not their biggest problem. They desperately need Reed to work as a long-term halfback. Very few teams can be successful in the NRL without finishing in the top 7.
Kyle Flanagan’s failings were revealed in a grim statistic shown by Fox League: after seven rounds the Dragons’ starting forwards had covered more meters than any other NRL pack with 3880, ahead of the Warriors (3715) and Rabbitohs (3488).
However, the Dragons were able to score just 14 points per game, by far the lowest in the league. Second worst is the Bulldogs with 20 points.
The Dragons’ attack has been brutal and the gains made by the forwards have been squandered time and time again.
Anderson’s recruiting job is made even more difficult by Young being the interim coach. How will he convince players to join the club if they don’t know who the head coach will be in 2027?
Of course, the board needs to give Young a good chance. How long does this take? Eight weeks? More?
By then it will be late June or July. The contract with the players available for 2027 could previously be signed in November 2025. And the Perth Bears are now in the hunt.
Who is left to buy? Are some aging players looking for a last contract? They went down that path and it didn’t work.
It should be like that next time. The club has reached the final once in the last ten years. And it’s a shame.
Neil Breen is national sports editor and Walkley Award-winning journalist.Connect with: X.
