2026 pre-season

Morgan

Morgan

SGI NSW Cup
TAB again have the Dragons as spoon favourites. Sportsbet has Gold Coast and Newcastle equal favourites for the spoon and Dragons 3rd (from bottom).

I don't agree but need to fix the roster.
  • Either need a couple more fast but also good outside backs or a new, much faster fullback. Sami would be a good start but news on that has gone quiet. Gold Coast have probably refused to swap him for Ilias. Can't blame them.
  • Need Kyle Flanagan to stay in PNG or Fiji or Timbuktu or wherever the PMs XIII is playing.
  • Need Atkinson to at least hold his own as a halfback and LKT to fix his defence. With better go-forward, a decent halves partner and a year of first grade under his belt, I'm confident his attacking game is going to be consistently good. Not just in brief patches.
  • I don't think we need another prop. Klemmer lacks skill but that's ok, Couchmans have it in spades. Just need Klemmer to run hard, make metres. With a prop rotation of him, LPT, Couchmans, Sele, Gular, don't need any more props.
  • Need a bit of luck with injuries. It's no surprise the last few teams standing all had very few injuries to their best possible team.
That's a lot but it's not impossible. It's doable!
 
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D

Dragon David

SGI Jersey Flegg
Morgan said:
TAB again have the Dragons as spoon favourites. Sportsbet has Gold Coast and Newcastle equal favourites for the spoon and Dragons 3rd (from bottom).

I don't agree but need to fix the roster.
  • Either need a couple more fast but also good outside backs or a new, much faster fullback. Sami would be a good start but news on that has gone quiet. Gold Coast have probably refused to swap him for Ilias. Can't blame them.
  • Need Kyle Flanagan to stay in PNG or Fiji or Timbuktu or wherever the PMs XIII is playing.
  • Need Atkinson to at least hold his own as a halfback and LKT to fix his defence. With better go-forward, a decent halves partner and a year of first grade under his belt, I'm confident his attacking game is going to be consistently good. Not just in brief patches.
  • I don't think we need another prop. Klemmer lacks skill but that's ok, Couchmans have it in spades. Just need Klemmer to run hard, make metres. With a prop rotation of him, LPT, Couchmans, Sele, Gular, don't need any more props.
  • Need a bit of luck with injuries. It's no surprise the last few teams standing all had very few injuries to their best possible team.
That's a lot but it's not impossible. It's doable!
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:rolleyes::rolleyes: Predicting that we would get the spoon every year - one year they will get it right. Getting our roster for all positions right will be a big help to avoid getting the spoon. Serious injuries are something that cannot be avoided unfortunately so good back ups are needed and players in the lower grades will need to be near first grade quality especially for key positions to replace any long term injured players.
 
D

Dave03

SGI NSW Cup
Anyone know dates on when pre-season training resumes & xmas breaks, trials etc? Basically a timeline.
 
J

Justadragon

SGI NSW Cup
Morgan said:
TAB again have the Dragons as spoon favourites. Sportsbet has Gold Coast and Newcastle equal favourites for the spoon and Dragons 3rd (from bottom).

I don't agree but need to fix the roster.
  • Either need a couple more fast but also good outside backs or a new, much faster fullback. Sami would be a good start but news on that has gone quiet. Gold Coast have probably refused to swap him for Ilias. Can't blame them.
  • Need Kyle Flanagan to stay in PNG or Fiji or Timbuktu or wherever the PMs XIII is playing.
  • Need Atkinson to at least hold his own as a halfback and LKT to fix his defence. With better go-forward, a decent halves partner and a year of first grade under his belt, I'm confident his attacking game is going to be consistently good. Not just in brief patches.
  • I don't think we need another prop. Klemmer lacks skill but that's ok, Couchmans have it in spades. Just need Klemmer to run hard, make metres. With a prop rotation of him, LPT, Couchmans, Sele, Gular, don't need any more props.
  • Need a bit of luck with injuries. It's no surprise the last few teams standing all had very few injuries to their best possible team.
That's a lot but it's not impossible. It's doable!
Click to expand...
It really comes as no surprise the way we finished this season. It might be a different story if we stay injury free.
 
Morgan

Morgan

SGI NSW Cup
Justadragon said:
It really comes as no surprise the way we finished this season. It might be a different story if we stay injury free.
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It's a tired old excuse for sure but there is some truth to it.
Ryan said:
I saw a graphic on this site saying Dragons were second worst for injuries. But still should've done better. Souths had the worst of it with injuries and finished 2 or 3 wins better than us?
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The game against Souths late in the season was disgraceful! Worst performance I've seen since...... I don't know when. I remember a few years ago Melbourne flogged us and Jack Bird simply stepped out of the way rather than try to stop NAS scoring. That was bad but it was against quality opposition. Having said that, Wayne Bennett is obviously a much better coach than Shane Flanagan. I guess (just a guess) Shane Flanagan's insistence on picking one certain player has a lot of the dressing room offside. Justifiably so!

Having said all that, at the start of the season, full strength Souths were probably tipped to easily beat full strength Dragons. So both being decimated by injury on paper would be mean a similar position, just much lower on the ladder.
 
Morgan

Morgan

SGI NSW Cup
Giving this a go based on rumour and innuendo way too early and taking a critical look.

Round 1 team​

  1. Gutho
  2. CT
  3. Holmes
  4. Suli
  5. Sami
  6. LKT
  7. Atkinson

  8. Klemmer / NAS
  9. Cook
  10. Couchman
  11. Su'A
  12. Egan
  13. Stewart

  14. Liddle
  15. Couchman
  16. Sele
  17. LPT

  18. Sele
The backline is much more of a concern than the forwards as far as I can see. Holmes isn't getting younger. Suli is good for making metres but isn't going to set up or score many tries. CT is going to bulldoze over for some tries but his lack of speed is going to mean an equal number aren't scored and an equal number will be let in due to cover defence not being fast enough. Sami? I just don't know. From what I've seen he's 'workman like' but haven't seen much of him so I'll trust others opinion. It's still only speculation anyway. Gutho is slow for a fullback but not much slower than Dylan Edwards so I don't see a problem there for at least next season. Atkinson is a big mystery.

I know NAS is nothing but idle speculation. Either way, I think this pack looks very decent. Couchman's, Egan, LPT and Stewart will be better still and were already good when fit. Cook/Liddle is a gun hooker duo. If Sele is ever fit, he's good. I don't see a problem with the pack.
 
GCRV

GCRV

SGI NSW Cup
Morgan said:
Giving this a go based on rumour and innuendo way too early and taking a critical look.

Round 1 team​

  1. Gutho
  2. CT
  3. Holmes
  4. Suli
  5. Sami
  6. LKT
  7. Atkinson

  8. Klemmer / NAS
  9. Cook
  10. Couchman
  11. Su'A
  12. Egan
  13. Stewart

  14. Liddle
  15. Couchman
  16. Sele
  17. LPT

  18. Sele
The backline is much more of a concern than the forwards as far as I can see. Holmes isn't getting younger. Suli is good for making metres but isn't going to set up or score many tries. CT is going to bulldoze over for some tries but his lack of speed is going to mean an equal number aren't scored and an equal number will be let in due to cover defence not being fast enough. Sami? I just don't know. From what I've seen he's 'workman like' but haven't seen much of him so I'll trust others opinion. It's still only speculation anyway. Gutho is slow for a fullback but not much slower than Dylan Edwards so I don't see a problem there for at least next season. Atkinson is a big mystery.

I know NAS is nothing but idle speculation. Either way, I think this pack looks very decent. Couchman's, Egan, LPT and Stewart will be better still and were already good when fit. Cook/Liddle is a gun hooker duo. If Sele is ever fit, he's good. I don't see a problem with the pack.
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TBH it's not a bad team. But don't think we can afford both Suli and CT in the backline. I'd hope a faster winger is available in place of CT. Maybe that Penrith winger.

A lot will depend on Atkinson but he's going to have a big advantage to start with compared to Kyle with more go-forward.

Not making any comment about Kyle's ability other than LKT is much better. Will Flanno go with Atkinson and Kyle? Despite what he said, I think DA, Deano and Ennis will prevail in talking him out of it.
 
Ryan

Ryan

SGI NSW Cup
Morgan said:
It's a tired old excuse for sure but there is some truth to it.

The game against Souths late in the season was disgraceful! Worst performance I've seen since...... I don't know when. I remember a few years ago Melbourne flogged us and Jack Bird simply stepped out of the way rather than try to stop NAS scoring. That was bad but it was against quality opposition. Having said that, Wayne Bennett is obviously a much better coach than Shane Flanagan. I guess (just a guess) Shane Flanagan's insistence on picking one certain player has a lot of the dressing room offside. Justifiably so!

Having said all that, at the start of the season, full strength Souths were probably tipped to easily beat full strength Dragons. So both being decimated by injury on paper would be mean a similar position, just much lower on the ladder.
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In a similar position relative to each other. True. They got a few of their big names back for the last few rounds. Latrell Mitchell carved us up.
 
J

Justadragon

SGI NSW Cup
Ryan said:
I saw a graphic on this site saying Dragons were second worst for injuries. But still should've done better. Souths had the worst of it with injuries and finished 2 or 3 wins better than us?
Click to expand...
Plus at the height of their injuries they smacked us by 40-0, disgraceful effort by us.
 
D

Dragon David

SGI Jersey Flegg
GCRV said:
It helped Souths to have our forwards standing down. Even JDB was poor in the second half of the season.
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JDB clocked off unfortunately and several of the others I'd say. Where was the heart? None I guess from our players. 40 blot what a terrible effort. If they play like that in any game next year - you can forget the Dragons for years - wont be a club worthy of following.
 
J

Justadragon

SGI NSW Cup
Dragon David said:
JDB clocked off unfortunately and several of the others I'd say. Where was the heart? None I guess from our players. 40 blot what a terrible effort. If they play like that in any game next year - you can forget the Dragons for years - wont be a club worthy of following.
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Plus the fact Dave that we had 40 put on us 3 weeks in a row. there was no heart there was no anything.
 
D

Dragon David

SGI Jersey Flegg
Justadragon said:
Plus the fact Dave that we had 40 put on us 3 weeks in a row. there was no heart there was no anything.
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As I said Justa, most of the players clocked off. We can't blame our injury toll on those feeble efforts. What did Dean Young do to correct the first 40+ debacle, what did he do after the second and is he still scratching his noggin about the thrashing by Souths? Dean Young really needs to get his act together and so too the players who reverted to being lazy and lacking interest with those poor results.:mad:
 
Eric

Eric

Staff
Dragon David said:
JDB clocked off unfortunately and several of the others I'd say. Where was the heart? None I guess from our players. 40 blot what a terrible effort. If they play like that in any game next year - you can forget the Dragons for years - wont be a club worthy of following.
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It was really embarrassing and disheartening but my view is we shouldn't throw the baby out with the bathwater, as they say.

We were missing both Couchmans, Su'A, Egan and Stewart! So apart from JDB, our 5 best forwards. And I agree JDB clocked off. No surprise. Playing in a struggling, injury decimated team and knowing you are out the door, how can one get motivated? And on top of all that, were missing our best our best outside back and goal kicker. I know Souffs had injury problems through the year but I'd bet in that game, our injury toll was much worse.
 
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