Khaleesi

The Dragons don't deserve a subtitle right now

It was meant to go like this.

Wait no let me double check that. It was meant to go like this? Are you sure? Like…this?

It was meant to go like this, but even this is a bit much. Tanking in the purest sense of the concept. We are going to be bad this season, why are you booing me, I’m right?

Shane Flanagan made sure to temper the expectations of the Dragons faithful during the preseason, trotting out a vague company cliche along the lines of “development year”, “tough lessons” and various other coachspeak tropes the embattled often fall back upon, except those are usually reserved for July after a spate of injuries, not in the sunny afterglow of a February preseason canter.

The honesty from Flanagan was disarming, because for years we as the cattle are often fed from the same trough over and over again. If you’re not here to win the premiership, why are you even bothering etc etc.

I never begrudge fans for lapping up the eternal pool of optimism in preseason, it’s a clean slate after all, but unfortunately for our friends of a Red V persuasion the fountain of hope had a big floating turd right in the middle.

I’m not one for ladder predictions but I certainly wouldn’t have had the Dragons anywhere near the top 13 or 14 this season, and the rebuilding year validations are only really acceptable if you’re, well, rebuilding the squad. The Dragons Round 1 side, which lost in Golden Point to a myopic Bulldogs attack over in Las Vegas (which may prove to be the highlight of their season at this rate), featured two players who weren’t in first grade last season.

One of them was Setu Tu, a mature aged rookie winger who has since been dropped, the other was big name half recruit Daniel Atkinson, who has failed thus far to shoulder the hopes of an entire merged fanbase. Two inexperienced players who signed with the Dragons in the hopes of furthering their careers through opportunities, supported by a squad dripping with the stench of the previous decade long bed of misery and mediocrity in which the club has been sleeping.

Following the blueprint of Nicho Hynes to Cronulla from Melbourne, the Dragons hoped a similar elevation in role and responsibility from backup to starter for Atkinson would prove beneficial. The results so far have been…statistically insignificant? It would be unfair to sentence him to the gallows already, the forwards aren’t helping him out and to be honest neither are his fellow spine members, but the nature of top level sport is results mean everything. Should Atkinson have been billed as a saviour signing? No, probably not. Was he? By some sections of the fanbase, yes he was. Does that open him up to criticism, both valid and otherwise? Sadly yes.

As a staunch defender of the Azzurri I believe there’s a player in Atkinson. He’s a viable utility option in the NRL, some players just aren’t built to be full time halfbacks. He’s shifting to the five-eighth spot this week (look he’s wearing a new hat), he’ll get time given his status as a new signing, but I can’t imagine many halves with his comparable lack of experience thriving in this environment.

Everyone knows the definition of insanity, and maybe it is through that lens that we examine the season thus far and spare Shane Flanagan of serious ire because, again, he did basically tell everyone to cool the jets, but outside of halves prospect Kade Reed and a couple of exciting forward prospects like the Couchmans, Loko Pasifiki Tonga and Hamish Stewart, there isn’t exactly a next generation barging down the door to supplant the old guard.

Clint Gutherson has been a first grade stalwart for over a decade now, and his robust style of play and endless effort appear to be showing on the legs, the odometer cranked up to full nines as he lopes through game after game at fullback, a sickening metaphor of the passage of time playing out on main street as Jaxon Purdue skipped past him in North Queensland’s rout of the Dragons at fortress Kogarah, if fortresses were made of pillows and blankets.

Flanagan was right to subdue hope, but that’s cold comfort when the product is as miserable and bland as what is currently on display. The worst place a sports team can exist is the part of the Venn diagram where bad doesn’t cross over with fun. The Gold Coast Titans historically are quite bad, but also sometimes fun! The Dragons right now are very bad, and very unpleasant stylistically. Atkinson is in the trenches fighting for his life behind a forward pack that would struggle running downhill in the Cooper’s Hill Cheese-Rolling and Wake¹, Kyle Flanagan is being rushed back from what looked like a broken face, Gutherson is out with a soft tissue injury that is forcing the Dragons to play a fullback they are actively trying to get rid of, and Damien Cook feels like the desperately tired daycare teacher trying to hold it all together on the brink of mental breakdown.

The futility explains the very public pursuit of Dolphins backup fullback Trai Fuller, who may be a career reserve grader (and far older than the casual fan might realise), but is undoubtedly a different change of speed to what the Dragons currently have, in that he actually does have speed, which matters now more than ever in this fast forward version of Peter V’Landys’ game of wizard chess.

(A note is slid across my desk by my editors)²

Trai Fuller told the Dragons thanks but no thanks? How utterly dire. From the outside looking in, the Fuller chase felt like a real last ditch move from a regime trying to cling onto the last frayed thread of the rope dangling over the edge of the cliff, and Fuller has come along and kicked the rope off. It says a lot about where the club is currently that the fans were so excited to potentially add a 29 year old reserve grade fullback just because he was a slight departure from the morbid futility that is currently enveloping the club.

The Dragons do have a really cool fullback. He just goes to another school. In a different state. This is like when your imaginary friends hate you too.

The road travelled doesn’t get any less gloomy any time soon. The Dragons run into Manly this week, and while they might also still be a bad team, they are in the midst of the scientifically proven dead cat bounce and just put 52 points on the Dolphins. The Dragons have scored 68 points all season. It’s a real race to 10 points against the merger right now.

The Dragons are marching to Westeros. I just hope that unlike the show, the leader of these Dragons isn’t slain by their lover that turns out to be their nephew.

End messy analogy.

Kill it all with fire.

Long live Jorah Mormont.

1. Place your bets on which Dragon would win

2. It’s me, I am my editors