After hearing doubtful suggestions around the traps that the St. George Dragons (formerly the St. George-Illawarra Dragons) can make the top four and ludicrous ones that they can win the premiership, I have felt it necessary to quash these foolish thoughts. For starters, the current squad appears hopelessly less talented than the 2005 squad. It must stand to reason then that if the 2005 squad were unable to even make the grand final then the 2008 Dragons are longshots. Yes they have won seven games on the trot but first, let's examine the opposition in that streak.
Win #1: Against a Storm outfit missing nine players and their coach on Origin duties, the Dragons lit up ANZ stadium in a six tries to two, 36-12 romp over the defending premiers. Well five of the defending premiers anyway...
Win #2: Although a very credible performance in winning 20-18 at Brookvale, I would suggest that this was the worst game of football between two sides in the top eight this season. With 13 handling errors apiece and a combined 86 missed tackles, you could be forgiven for thinking this was a battle of the cellar-dwellers.
Win #3: The Rabbitohs had won only once this season (against fellow wooden spoon contenders, the Cowboys) going into this match and were chopping and changing halves on a weekly basis leaving them without cohesion and good decision-making. Dean Widders was at five eighth for this one if you can believe that. Souths had no luck either in this match with the time-keeper sounding for half-time a minute early (when Souths had a full set inside the Dragons 20) and the Dragons also scoring off a charge-down. 26-12, not very convincing stuff.
Win #4: The Dragons showed their eagerness to beat up on teams missing multiple Origin players by defeating the "Baby Broncos" 28-10. They still managed to miss 38 tackles against a makeshift team who you would hardly say were dangerous in attack.
Win #5: After negotiating the bye, the Red V's were shown a thing or two about courage by the Panthers. Penrith were still right in this game until the end despite suffering multiple injuries throughout the match and finishing with only one player on the bench. The Dragons eked a 13-12 win in a match they should have won comfortably at home.
Win #6: Definitely one of the more impressive efforts in this streak, an away win against the Gold Coast. It must be noted however, that Scott Prince was out through injury. Nevertheless, a hard place to win a football game , Scott Prince or no. Dragons sneak home again 26-22.
Win #7: St.George downed the Knights on the road 24-16. The Knights are far from a formidable outfit though, despite decent early season form and currently lie in 11th place.
So there you have it. A pretty unremarkable seven game winning streak, all things considered. And perhaps I should have waited a week to write about the most unimpressive eight game winning streak ever instead. The Dragons are at home to the Raiders. Should win by 2-6 points and firm another couple of points in premiership markets...seriously, get on people!
2 comments:
Couldn't agree more!
Don't forget that in the 2 point win over Manly, Anthony Watmough was badly concussed in the 1st 10 minutes of the game. And supercoach Des Hasler played him for the whole 80 minutes without a break!
The other thing not to forget is that the media down here have picked up on the Nathan Brown: Supercoach angle! WTF???
get on indeed oh wait no sorry thats get real. The dragons are testimonny to why the NRl draw needs to be seriously reworked and not be at the beck and call of their media contracts. They don't fix in the season at the start like the AFL which would be fine if they used it to there advantage instead of simply giving in to the media so they can pick what are the high profile games of the round and put them on in prime time. If however the NRL had some balls then origin squads could be announced and teams hurting the most given byes or opponents who are equally at loss. I just pray that there are enough games in the season left for the Dragons to show their true colours and drop out of the eight.
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