So the Dragons are in the market for a star halfback.
Great news for long-suffering St George Illawarra supporters.
The bad news is that no star half is on the market for a switch to a club that is struggling to get out of more than a decade of spinning their wheels without getting anywhere near the pointy end of the ladder.
They have won just one playoff game and made the finals only twice since Wayne Bennett vacated the coaching helm at the end of 2011.
After wasting three years on the failed Anthony Griffin hire, they have gone no higher in the standings since Shane Flanagan has been on board.
They were 11th, 10th and 16th under Griffin and while Flanagan has managed to instil some much-needed steel to what was considered a brittle line-up, they ended up 11th last year and are in the same spot heading into Saturday’s Round 18 rendezvous with the Raiders in Canberra.
New CEO Tim Watsford tried to get the Dragons fans to down their pitchforks and flaming torches during the week by saying the club was cashed up in their pursuit of a top-line playmaker.
They have already recruited Sharks half Dan Atkinson for next season but they want to land a bigger fish to make a splash on the free agency market.
Rookie pivot Lyhkan King-Togia is showing impressive glimpses and first-choice half Kyle Flanagan is copping endless abuse from keyboard warriors online as their punching bag for supposedly receiving preferential treatment from his dad in the coach’s box.
Flanagan jnr is not the reason the team has won just six of 14 matches this season – he has been serviceable without being outstanding, held his own without being anywhere near as bad as the trolls would have you believe.
The problem at the Dragons is that they continually say they are going after marquee recruits and never seem to land a big name.
They are the kings of expressing interest, often through the media, and then announcing they have decided to withdraw their interest, which invariably turns out to be their way of saving face because the player they wanted has committed elsewhere.
Daniel Atkinson is tackled by the Warriors. (Photo by Brendon Thorne/Getty Images)
This was the case yet again recently when
Similar storylines unfolded when they were trying to beef up their pack with Stefano Utoikamanu, Reagan Campbell-Gillard, Addin Fonua-Blake and Terrell May all saying thanks but no thanks before they pried Emre Guler from Canberra and rescued David Klemmer off the scrapheap at Wests Tigers.
They were briefly in the Daly Cherry-Evans sweepstakes at the start of the year when he surprised the NRL landscape by announcing he would be leaving Manly at season’s end before the Roosters emerged as his favoured destination.
St George Illawarra splashed the cash in 2014 to land Gareth Widdop and then went way over market value to get Ben Hunt’s signature. Even when those two overlapped for the 2018-19 seasons, the pieces weren’t in place around them to get the Dragons firing.
A similar scenario could eventuate if they pay massive overs for whoever shows interest and then they would have a Dylan Brown situation on their books that Newcastle are going to have to navigate for the next decade.
Brown is the anomaly but it usually takes more than just a hefty contract to sign an elite NRL playmaker in the modern marketplace.
A team needs to have a reputation for professionalism from top to bottom and if they are not in the playoff picture, they have to be on the up.
The Dragons have pretty much been bouncing along the bottom reaches of the ladder for the past 13 seasons, only three times finishing above 10th spot when they were eighth in 2015, ninth two years later and the “high” watermark of 2017 when they scraped into the finals in seventh and actually beat someone in a playoff game by belting the Broncos.
Part of the problem has been the phalanx of local juniors or young prospects from their pathways who have not been retained with Finau Latu switching to Canterbury recently and Souths-bound young half Jonah Glover the latest names on a list that includes Raiders winger Savelio Tamale, Storm utility Tyran Wishart, Warriors forward Jackson Ford and Manly speedster Jason Saab.
Tyran Wishart is tackled. (Photo by Quinn Rooney/Getty Images)
When it comes to cap flexibility, they have very few long-term contracts on the books.
They have just two players signed beyond 2027, which is the lowest of any side – Atkinson and recently extended hooker Jacob Liddle.
Signings frenzies are a tricky beast at the best of times but the next few years will be a nightmare with the Perth Bears entering the league in 2027 and PNG, supposedly, going to be right to go the following season.
Those franchises will be paying over the odds for recruits, inflating what is already going to be a sky-rocketing market once the new broadcast rights deal kicks in.
It’s a good time to be a star or player with potential because the first $2 million salary will not be far off.
The Dragons will only be able to convince a marquee player to come to Wollongong if they are tracking upwards and have the nucleus of a strong team starting to shine.
Damien Cook, Valentine Holmes and Clint Gutherson are plugging the gaps for talent and experience in the short term but their best years are well behind them.
They have made the right steps by investing in King-Togia, Toby and Ryan Couchman, Dylan Egan and Hamish Stewart over the past couple of seasons as Flanagan has finally pushed veteran journeymen out the door.
But they need a star in their prime to decide that red and white is right for them.
No matter what your CEO says on your podcast, that’s much easier said than done.
