Trial by fire: Inside the fall of the Dragons

At 7.12 am on Wednesday, Shane Flanagan used the club’s group chat to summon 10 of his players to individual meetings with him.

There were already a slew of meetings scheduled for the day, as is common practice at all NRL clubs.

However, some of the St George Illawarra players required for an additional five-minute catch-up with their coach feared their immediate playing futures could be on the line after the club’s winless start to the season.

Their fears were soon allayed. Each filed in and out of their individual fireside chats with Flanagan, which were no more consequential than any other commitment that day. However, it speaks to the mindset at a club where some of its players are walking on eggshells and communication, at least from an outward-facing perspective, has been nonexistent.

During the club’s longest losing streak – a barren 10-game run that began in 2025 and includes six consecutive losses to open this season – there hasn’t been a single public utterance from anyone at the Dragons’ shiny new $65 million centre of excellence at Fairy Meadow. Not from chairman Andrew Lancaster, chief executive Tim Watsford, chief operating officer Ben Creagh or recruiter Daniel Anderson.

In the hours preceding their latest loss, to Manly at Wollongong, the Dragons’ merchandise truck lost control on the descent down Mount Ousley and flipped onto its side. A season that was a figurative car crash became a literal one. If the hierarchy has a plan to get things back on track, long-suffering fans have yet to hear it.

As despondent players trudged out of the dressing sheds after the Sea Eagles loss, there was little appetite to address the awaiting journalists. It was left to co-captain Clint Gutherson – who didn’t even play due to an injured hamstring – to show some leadership by making himself available to say what needed to be said. He backed the besieged coach, conceded the senior players weren’t aiming up and revealed he is prepared to give up his No.1 jersey if the club is successful in attracting Cowboys fullback Scott Drinkwater.

Those comments went down better than the ones that came from Flanagan in his post-match presser moments earlier. Asked about the prospect of making changes to his underperforming team, the premiership-winning mentor replied: “The issue with most NRL clubs is, what are we going to replace them with?

“… It’s not like I’ve got someone sitting there that can jump in there. It’s a tricky one … If I had someone better out of the side, I would put them in, trust me.”

Those remarks did little to endear Flanagan to several members of his NSW Cup side, which currently sits in second spot on the ladder and reached last year’s grand final. For Loko Pasifiki Tonga, considered one of the game’s most promising young props, it was the final straw. Overlooked for selection all year – albeit he was sidelined briefly with a neck injury – Tonga’s manager demanded his client be granted immediate permission to explore his options.

When the request was denied, it resulted in agent Craig Clifton unloading on the club, in an email obtained by this masthead.

“You cannot tell us privately that he is a valued part of your future while the head coach states publicly that he has no better options to call upon,” Clifton wrote. “The contradiction is glaring, and it is entirely unfair to expect a 20-year-old player of Loko’s calibre to languish in an environment where his pathway is so clearly blocked.”

The Dragons, long considered a destination club, is now in the unenviable position of having more players wanting to leave it than join it. Zac Lomax and Ben Hunt are marquee men who agitated until they were released, Jaydn Su’A will join Parramatta at season’s end after opting not to take up an extension option in his contract, and Tonga still wants out. Several other contracted players are said to be considering their options.

Flanagan presides over a squad that is unbalanced and underperforming. Given that he assembled it himself, there is no one else to blame. The blueprint that worked so well for him a decade ago at Cronulla – that included luring veterans unwanted elsewhere – has backfired. In recruiting Gutherson, Valentine Holmes and Damien Cook – from clubs that didn’t want to keep them – he has solved rivals’ problems and created ones of his own. Speed is the ultimate currency in a super-charged NRL season, and the trio no longer possess it.

And then there’s the elephant in the room; the continual selection of Flanagan’s playmaker son Kyle. While his halves partners have been churned and burned, Kyle remains a constant in a team regularly on the wrong side of tight contests.

Hunt fell out with Shane Flanagan and was eventually released, while Bud Sullivan, Lachlan Ilias, and Jonah Glover have all gone. Another halves option, Lyhkan King-Togia, has bounced in and out of first grade.

Flanagan is adamant that Kyle remains the club’s best halfback, despite luring Daniel Atkinson from Cronulla to play that role. Teenage tyro Kade Reed, meanwhile, is deemed too young and slight to be thrown into a struggling side.

Glover’s departure may well be the most telling. Despite leading the Dragons reserve grade side to last year’s NSW Cup decider, he felt he would never achieve his NRL debut while the Flanagans were at the club. The 23-year-old would have started the season in first grade under Wayne Bennett at South Sydney this year if not for a broken jaw.

“I felt like I was never going to make the NRL at the Dragons, so I moved to the Rabbitohs,” Glover said when this masthead sat down with him last November.

“It was hard to get a look in. I felt like I played pretty well, but just didn’t get the opportunity to play.”

The Dragons have a crop of promising prospects, particularly in the forwards. Retaining them, and putting the right people around them, will be a challenge. Blues and Kangaroos prop Keaon Koloamatangi has been secured from 2027, but only after he was promised a five-year tenure – a season longer than other suitors were prepared to offer. Drinkwater, meanwhile, is commanding seven figures per season in exchange for his signature. They are further examples of a struggling club needing to pay above the market rate to strengthen its roster.

Even with inflated offers to targets, the pitch to prospective players is a difficult one. The spine is arguably the weakest in the NRL, and it’s unclear who will be the coach by the time new signings actually arrive. Flanagan’s pre-season statement that the Dragons wouldn’t challenge for the premiership was hardly a shocking prediction, but few could have imagined they would remain winless well into April.

Much has been made about the supposed tension between the joint-venture partners, the St George and Illawarra sides of the merger. For the most part, it is overstated. They have allowed Watsford to overhaul the administration staff, with the focus now turning to the football department. They are united in their desire for Flanagan to succeed, knowing their problems run much deeper.

In August of last year, St George Illawarra stakeholders opted to extend Flanagan’s contract to the end of 2028. They did so in the belief it would create stability and end speculation about his future. It has not. After a record losing run, it’s the biggest talking point in the game.