Shane Flanagan will be very aware his future at the Dragons may be in doubt, but Andrew Johns does not believe sacking him would resolve the issues at the club.
A ninth straight loss in first grade has placed a dark cloud over the Dragons, with fans booing the team from the field and beginning to call for changes to be made quickly.
At the top of the list of changes that have been floated is a new coach, with Flanagan issuing an apology to the Dragons faithful after a 32-0 thrashing at the hands of the Cowboys on Saturday.
Damien Cook told reporters the onus was on the playing group, while Flanagan refused to offer up any excuses for their results.
But the eighth Immortal does not believe Flanagan is the Dragons’ biggest issue.
“Nothing is going to change (by sacking him),” Johns said on Nine’s Sunday Footy Show.
“Unfortunately, they just don’t have the players.
“There are three parts to a team: the engine room, who are the big boys who lay the foundations, the strike players out wide, and the creative players.
“They were beyond poor, their kicking game was diabolical. You’ve got players playing in the creative positions … Daniel Atkinson is an outright five-eighth, not a halfback. It is too big of an ask to have him play in that position.
“Changing the coach won’t do anything for me. They just need to find a genuine No.7; that is the key. Unfortunately, there is not many of them out there.”
Billy Slater recognised the easiest option for the Dragons board would be to part ways with Flanagan, though he, too, agreed the playing group was an issue.
“Unfortunately for coaches, they are the ones in the firing line,” he added.
“They are the easiest to move on to get a reaction from the playing group. It is hard to move on 13 players in the middle of the season.”
Flanagan recognised he could not recruit a new squad in the middle of the season when speaking to media earlier in the week.
But Mark Riddell, a club legend who now works as an NRLW and pathways recruitment lead, believes Flanagan needs to pull the pin and release one junior star who could fix the glaring issue in the halves.
“I know I am employed by the club, but they have to change now,” he said on 2GB’s The Continuous Call Team on Sunday.
“We can’t just keep the same thing and expect a different result. They have to make changes, give guys an opportunity and see what happens. We are at a really low point.
“There is plenty of potential (in the system). The first player that will be spoken about is Kade Reed. He is a good kid, great player. The question marks that the club has over him is not about his football … He is a genuine halfback, he knows his footy, but it is his body (that they are worried about).
“I think the club and Flanno are just waiting to make sure that when they put him in he is ready to go and that he becomes a player that plays at the club for five or 10 years.
“With the situation they are in at the moment, with him being an out-and-out halfback, they just need to pull the trigger and give him an opportunity.”
Reed re-signed with the club until the end of 2028 in November last year.
The 19-year-old has been training with the NRL team during pre-season for the past three years.
He was named in the reserves for the Dragons against the Cowboys in round five.
He will be battling against Lyhkan King-Togia and Atkinson to secure a spot in the starting line-up for the club’s round six match against Manly on Friday evening.
Leave a Reply