So the home and away season is almost over for the St George Illawarra Dragons so I thought I would write a season in review post. Overall, I think our season hasn't been too bad. Now I know I'm biased because I am a supporter of the club but there are plenty of dragons supporters who have been very negative about our season when they really don't need to be. I'm going to try put things into perspective and explain with reason why our season wasn't a failure.
It was an improvement from last year. I think as long as we move upwards on the ladder, then the season has been ok. Fans need to be patient. Finals will come in due time if you relax the pressure and let the team build at their own speed. Especially since our team has been changing a lot over the past couple of years. Until there is a consistent roster, it will be difficult to see rapid improvements.
We sacked a coach. So there are two points from this. Firstly, as much as I liked Price, and was happy to give him a chance, his time was up and he needed to move on. Secondly, under McGregor, we've been a completely different team, showing new energy and passion. It was a good move from the club to get rid of Steve Price and I think a positive turn for our club.
We signed a coach. Sacking Price left room for Mary to show his stuff and I think he did enough to prove he deserves a proper shot at the job. With a full preseason under his belt and a chance to sign some players he wants to sign. I know some people believe three years is too long but you must understand that the club needs to show stability with its coaching staff if they are to attract players on long term deals.I think McGregor will do a pretty good job next year and if we make the top 8 or even fall just short then I think he would have proven himself worthy of the position.
Injuries. Lets put our injuries into perspective. Sure, it wasn't as bad as other teams. But our superstar winger, Brett Morris, missed plenty of games after his origin injury, Merrin wasn't ever 100% the same post origin, one of our big signings in Dylan Farrell (who we surely based many plays off during pre season planning) suffered a double pec tear. Michael Witt who we signed for the halves also suffered a season ending injury. It was unfortunate but I feel like a lot of the planning we did in the pre season went to waste with injuries.Hopefully things work out better next year. I know injuries is hardly an excuse but when you are trying to rebuild a club, you need everything to work in your favour.
Poor list management. One of the negatives of our season was our poor list management. I put a lot of this on Steve Price as well as CEO Peter Doust who failed to recruit smartly. We signed Witt and Williams and Widdop. That's three halves. We wasted so much time messing around with halves pairings at the start of the year, in the end we lost one of the best young players coming through in Sam Williams. We then signed Benji Marshall and had to start all over again with our halves pairing. We also have an over abundance of centres. Beale, Farrell, Dugan, Green, Runciman (and Thompson if we need him there) have all played there this year. There's only two centres on the field at once. The same goes for fullbacks. There is one fullback yet Beale, Dugan and Quinlan can all play there. And yet somehow I cannot list a forward pack full of stars. How that happened is beyond me. I love our forwards and am so proud of their effort this year but the fact of the matter is they just physically are not big enough to go head to head with the likes of Burgess, Graham, Gallen, Taylor... At what point did management think this was ok?
We broke the hoodoo. If anything, Dragons fans can walk away this season and say 'praise The Lord, we beat the raiders at home!' That for us, is actually a pretty big achievement given we won 2 minor premierships, a grand final and a world cup challenge before we could beat canberra. So I think that was a great part of the season.
We were top of the table. It didn't last long but it was wonderful to be able to chant 'we are number one, we are number one' to the boys at Cronulla. They looked happier than ever and it was a feeling we hadn't felt in a really long time so that was another highlight of the season.
Home games are an issue. I'm going to expand on this for next Monday's rant but just quickly, I cannot believe there was only 4 games at kogarah and 4 and wollongong. And not one kogarah game was against another Sydney team. no wonder the crowds were rubbish. No wonder we didnt crack 20000 in our membership. We are a proud club. kogarah is our home (more so that wollongong in my opinion just because of the club history). To only play four games there is outrageous and a big let down for the season. And to think they are considering scrapping kogarah altogether! To think they play local derby's between us and the sharks at Wollongong when Kogarah is closer for both clubs and there is actually a rivalry between Shire and St George rather than Shire and Illawarra! this really angers me and you'll get the full rant next monday so stay tuned.
In conclusion: I don't have too much of a problem with this season. Improvement, effort, change, hope. What is there to complain about?
How do you think we went?
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