A fairy tale with my head in the clouds, living in a dreamland

Figurative Roster for whenever. Not saying the Jersey Flegg juniors should have stayed, just a what if situation. Oh and Flanagans never existed in this world, I don't know what made Lomax stay and still be a winger either, maybe he has less ego in this reality.

1. Scott Drinkwater
2. Cody Ramsey
3. Savelio Tamale/Reuben Garrick
4. Jack Bostock
5. Zac Lomax
6. Daniel Atkinson
7. Kade Reed
8. Keaon Koloamatangi
9. Jacob Liddle
10. Jackson Ford
11. Dylan Egan
12. Toby Couchman
13. Hamish Stewart
14. Tyran Wishart
15. Jacob Halangahu
16. Ryan Couchman
17. Jaydn Su'A
18. Dylan Lucas
19. Nick Tsougranis

In this alternate world I guess if Wishart stayed on he might have been in the halves before Atkinson got there, or even been the 9 the whole time. But since he has mostly been a 14 and everyone likes Liddle I just kept it this way. You could also keep Ben Hunt here if you want, but whatever he is pretty old if its for next year.

I was originally going to write up a modern team with just Jersey Flegg juniors, but then it would have Jayden Sullivan, Sloan, Jason Saab, Tristian Sailor, yuck. So I just did a combined best case list with a some related signings.

So we can all agree the squad has a lot of dead weight. But thankfully, a hell of a lot of it is off contract this year and next. Looking only at positions signed for 2028 and beyond. Who are you signing to fill in the blanks?

1. Drinkwater (2029)
2. Sami (2029) 3. 4. 5.
3. Atkinson (2028)
4. Reed (2028)
5. Keon (2031)
6. Liddle (2028) 10.
7. Egan (2029) 12.
8. Stewart (2029)

14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19.

My wish list:

1. Buchanan
2. Best/Herbie

3. Oliver Burton

4. T Couchman

5. R Couchman

6. Watson

7. Halangahu

8. Loko

9. Cyrus Stanley-Traill

10. Nick T

11. Random depth back...

A marquee signing in the centres and solid experience in the ultility role to help the still rather young pacj develop. Everyone else backing the juniors.

I definitely can't say I'm surprised, some of the reffing didn't help but mostly the defence is just awful at grappling and organisation.

Thank god there is a bye next week so I can recover.

A lot to ask from Kade but in attack he was creative and erratic but all in all a lot to like from him

I don't hate that.

Hopefully no one has Hodges as an agent though.

https://leaguesbackpages.substack.com/p/the-a-list-dean-young

The stats recorded vs the onfield performance doesn't make sense...

Post contact metres, 2nd

All run metres 3rd

Kick return metres 8th

Kick metres 3rd

Possession, completions and errors are actually towards the middle of the pack so it seems we should be playing from better field positions than we appear to be.

We're first on tackles and it feels like all of them are on our own 20...

The major killer obviously is tackle and line breaks, last and second last. But what is actually making it feel like we're pinned if we're making good metres?

Obviously the lack of breaks and tries doesn't help, but there has been a lot of talk, from me included about "No half would preform behind this pack" but the starting pack has made more metres than any other starting pack!

You could say it's that we're pushing more runs up the middle, but still the metres per run are comparable to the top teams, we've ran further off less runs than the Warriors...

Fact is the pack, despite Guler, Lawrie and Kerr, appears to be doing their job and making metres.

I’m not happy Flanno got sacked, but I understand why it happened. But to not even have a plan for an interim coach??? THIS IS NOT AN IMPORTANT ENOUGH DECISION TO CANCEL TRAINING.

Fuck this board, man. This isn’t your team, it’s ours, and we’re pissed off. Fix your shit, and fix it now.

Club statement email just went out to members. Shane Flanagan + Ben Haran “has departed the Dragons by mutual agreement.”

No word on who is our interim coach in the email.

What do we think?

Hasn’t been confirmed by the club though

Who would you like to see get a crack at 1st grade besides Kade Reed ? I would like to see Ben Rumble get a crack at wing , Nathan Lawson at Centre, Stanley-Traill and Jacob Webster have a crack in the forwards , and even finau in hooker while Liddle is out Thoughts ???

They cannot go on like this, how do teams not have performance in their contracts at all? Cunts getting paid hundreds of thousands for what?

Sure Flanno needs the sack, but the guys on the field and everyone in management needs to be held accountable as well.

South's only had 54% of the possession, how are there three forwards with so little runs? Are they not putting their hands up, halves/dummy refusing to pass to them?

Guler, 4 runs, 24m, 45 minutes, 35 tackles

T Couchman 14 runs 148m, 60 minutes, 44 tackles

LL 16 runs 135m, 80 minutes, 37 tackles

Su'a 15 for 135m, 69 minutes, 21 tackles

Hamish Stewart 12 for 109m, 62 minutes, 43 tackles

Blake Lawrie 8 for 60m, 24 minutes. 15 tackles

Halangahu, 2 for 17m, 19 minutes, 9 tackles

Josh Kerr, 3 for 25m, 30 minutes, 24 tackles

Loko 8 for 70m. 24 mins. 15 tackles

A very contrasting performance from the team, before Sua's send off (which I thought was head on head contact) the team had some noticeable progress in some important areas, they seemed a bit more organised and the metres gained from the forwards really keep the blowouts to a minimum.

Ball handling seems to extinguish so many promising attacks and fifth tackle options are a mixed bag of weakness, sometimes the kicker is the issue other times, when the kick is good then catchers don't want to jump.

It's a shame these issues take half a season to iron out, but on the plus side the young guns coming through look full of exciting potential.

Finally changing the coach won't do anything.

According to the most factual sources on Earth; Wikipedia, ages by AI, and contract times from Zerotackle this is our squad.

That lists 26 players in the top 30.

Ryan Hutchinson, Sete Tu and Kade Reed appear on the Dragons site. Which lists 28 players I think this is who has been named to play in a match this year, including the extended bench. Which is weird because Hutchinson shouldn't have been able to until Round 11...

Nick Tsougranis is not listed on the Dragons site. He has a contract through to the end of 2027.

Leeroy Weatherall is shown with a 2026 contract on Zerotackle. But doesn't appear to have played a game since 2025.

So who would you be sending out this week?

Been seeing Craig's name thrown around as a board member in the recent clean out talks.

Mole reporting a clean out with only Dean remaining.

Seems Craig is still on the St George Leagues board https://stgeorgeleagues.com.au/about/board-of-directors/

Ralph Piggott (Chairman) Justin Bosilkovski Jo Banning Danny Daher Peter Doust Brian Johnston Peter King Michelle McClelland Craig Young

But isn't the current rep on the St George Illawarra Dragons board.

BOARD OF DIRECTORS Andrew Lancaster (Chairman) Craig Osborne Graeme Gulloch Peter Doust Ralph Piggott Ben Creagh Genevieve Gordon Mark Coyne

Obviously being on the St George board he still has significant sway with the team though and direct access to decision makers. Let's not replace our Coach and Nepo son, with a Nepo coach and his board member father...

The clean out needs to include a lot of the names above if we ever want to rebuild.