St George Illawarra Dragons coach Shane Flanagan condemned his team’s second-half performance as “so bad you’ve got to try and laugh about it” and promised to make big changes to the squad. The Dragons started well in the first half, leading 12-6 at halftime, but the Bulldogs turned the script, scoring 38 unanswered points to win 44-12 at Accor Stadium.
Flanagan might have used Hame Sele and Jack Bird’s injuries as mitigating factors for his team’s collapse, but the Dragons coach refused to blame those incidences.
“Last time I was in this room, I won a competition; how things have changed,” Flanagan stated at the post-match press conference. “It’s that horrible, you have to attempt to laugh about it. The two sections are very distinct. “We were quite good in the first half. I thought we ran hard, missed three tackles, and competed really hard. I believed that if we continued to play as we had in the first half, we would win the football game.
“Give them credit; they did exactly what we did to them in the first half. “Some of the numbers from the game aren’t seen very often. We only had eight sets, while they had 26. Possession killed us. “Then when we did finally get possession, we turned it over or gave penalties away, so our own worst enemy.” The Dragons’ second-half collapse maintained a troubling trend that has formed throughout the season: when Flanagan’s team loses, they lose heavily.
In the six games the Dragons have lost this season they have shipped a total of 238 points, an average of 39.6 points per game.
Flanagan conceded he hasn’t been able to put his finger on why his team are capitulating and if he could, he’d “fix it”.
“But it’s a tricky one,” Flanagan said.
“There’s a number of different things I’m thinking about why. Maybe we’re pushing the limits and I’m squeezing the lemon on a couple of them, I’m not quite sure.
“You can’t do it in one half and not do it in the other half, so it’s something we’ve got to work on.”
Flanagan did not rule out the prospect of a significant shake-up to his squad for the next game against the Penrith Panthers, hinting he could turn to players from the Dragons’ NSW Cup side.
Because if he doesn’t try something new, the premiership-winning coach knows he won’t be in a job for very long.
“Yeah, without a doubt,” Flanagan said.
“We’ll be looking at that (NSW Cup team) for sure.
“If you keep getting these results and you keep picking the same side, they’ll find a new coach.”
Be the first to comment