New captains, new halfback, same wooden spoon predictions.
The Dragons have farewelled their best player of the past five years in Ben Hunt and their best player of 2024 in Zac Lomax, but coach Shane Flanagan is as bullish as ever, predicting his side will be a different, improved beast with more points in them this year.
Five-eighth Kyle Flanagan is the only returning spine member, lining up alongside ex-Souths No.7 Lachlan Ilias and newly announced co-captains Clint Gutherson and Damien Cook – the most upheaval of any playmaking quartet in the NRL.
Without Hunt and Lomax, the question of where the Dragons’ points come from is a valid one, and has led bookmakers to install them as favourites to finish last.
Flanagan delighted in proving the same predictions wrong last year, only to suffer the despair of a bungled finals run. But the coach is promising a very different Red V in 2025.
Dominant from dummy half
Hunt’s messy exit from the club undoubtedly deprives the Dragons of an elite game managing halfback, though his NRL-leading 30 try assists in 2024 belied one of his more inconsistent seasons.
St George Illawarra’s attack yielded 21.2 points a game (12th in the NRL) and an average of 14 errors each outing – easily the worst in the competition.
Neither Flanagan nor Ilias have truly taken charge of an NRL side, having played outside senior halves throughout disrupted careers to date.
Flanagan expects Cook especially to play a heavier hand around the ruck as a result as he works on how to rotate him and Jacob Liddle – one of the Dragons’ best last season – between dummy half and a potential small forward role.
Dragons recruit Lachlan Ilias will patrener Kyle Flanagan in the halves.Credit: Credit: Dragons
“We’ll be very different,” Flanagan said. “We’ll definitely play different out of dummy half. Damien likes to roll the ruck a little bit more. He takes a little bit of control, comes out to the left and plays to the right and vice versa right to left. He’s always testing the marker system where Jacob’s more of a runner.
“The challenge is getting Jacob Liddle on when there’s tired [opposition] forwards to use his speed.”
Six, seven and the system
The Ilias-Flanagan halves combination is coming together in quick time given Ilias only returned to full field training on Monday, finally completing his lengthy recovery from a badly broken leg last April. The Dragons’ first trial, against the Roosters, is exactly one month away.
Key to Ilias’ first-grade return will be more consistent returns on a kicking game that was hit-and-miss during his Rabbitohs days. Flanagan rightly points out the strength both playmakers can find outside them on the edges.
“They’re both 25 and this is their time to stand up and run a footy team,” Flanagan said of his starting halves. “I think that [concern around the Dragons attack] underestimates our style of footy and the way we played last year. It wouldn’t matter who was out the back of some of our shape there.
“We created opportunities, and we’ll still create opportunities this year. We’ve just got to ice them. I think our systems and our structure and our coaching will give us those opportunities. Everyone’s just got to do their job. Our back-rowers are Origin standard in Jaydn Su’A and Luciano Leilua.
“Our centres are completely different. Val’s [Queensland Origin centre Valentine Holmes] all class and Moses Suli had his best year last year, and he’ll get better this year. I think we’ve got enough points in us, we’ve just got to execute well and give ourselves as many chances as we can.”
New Dragons co-captains Clint Gutherson and Damien Cook.Credit: Dragons Media
The other side of Gutho
For all the concern about the Dragons’ attack, their past two seasons have been the worst defensively in club history (28 points conceded per game in 2023, 26.42 in 2024).
Effort and cohesion without the ball truly cost St George Illawarra a top-eight finish last year, most notably in a humiliating 44-40 loss to Parramatta when their season was on the line.
Gutherson’s recruitment installs one of the game’s best defensive fullbacks at the back and shifts Tyrell Sloan to the wing.
As Flanagan notes, “Gutho’s defensive organisation skills are pretty special”, and it’s an area 22-year-old Sloan has lacked early in his career.
Sloan’s speed and evasiveness swinging into the line with the ball is where he has Gutherson covered, with the ex-Eels captain more likely to play as another five-eighth with guile and sleight of hand in the front line.
“We’ve seen how good he is. I can help him become a better player, and he can help me too,” Gutherson said of mentoring Sloan in the intricacies of fullback play. “He does things I can’t do, and I do things he can’t do.”
