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<\/a><\/p>\nNow in his third year at the helm of the Dragons, Flanagan has the core of a good young rising pack which will be bolstered by Keaon Koloamatangi next year.<\/p>\n
But there are questions over their points-scoring ability, with halfback Dan Atkinson having never worn No.7 in the NRL before and Kyle Flanagan alongside him.<\/p>\n
Flanagan caught attention earlier this week when he conceded the Dragons “aren’t winning the comp this year”, a point he stood by on Friday in Vegas.<\/p>\n
“I would love to say we are good enough with the big dog stuff to go at a premiership this year,” the Dragons coach said.<\/p>\n
“We will win a lot of footy games this year, but I am just realistic.<\/p>\n
Dragons coach Shane Flanagan looks on during a training session in Vegas.\u00a0Photo by Ian Hitchcock\/Getty Images<\/p>\n
“I don’t set stupid expectations. Maybe if I said ‘we are going to win the comp’, that might have got a bit more attention.<\/p>\n
“We have had a lot of new staff come in, some new players coming in, Keaon coming in next year.<\/p>\n
“We would like to think we are going to get two or three more signings, big ones for next year. We are building towards that.”<\/p>\n
What is realistic, according to Flanagan, is a finals finish.<\/p>\n
The Dragons have not made the top-eight since 2018, with only Wests Tigers having had a longer finals drought than the Red V.<\/p>\n
“Every side will be saying finals, without a doubt,” Flanagan said,<\/p>\n
“I think that is where I am at as well. Where you finish in those final series depends how good your season is.”<\/p>\n
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Flanagan, though, does believe Atkinson is ready to shoulder the responsibility of the No.7 jersey after limited game-time as a utility at Cronulla last year.<\/p>\n
The Dragons have made changes to their attack under new assistant Michael Ennis, wanting to play more direct and have their halves roam on both sides of the field.<\/p>\n
Atkinson’s last outing at halfback came way back in 2022 while playing Queensland Cup for Sunshine Coast, but the 25-year-old has insisted this week he is not fazed.<\/p>\n
“He’s definitely ready from a physical and mental perspective. He’s a lovely young boy and he’s trained well over the pre-season,” Shane Flanagan said.<\/p>\n
“He’s got all the attributes to be a halfback in the NRL.<\/p>\n
“It’s going to take time but with Daniel, he hasn’t played halfback for an NRL team for three, four years, maybe longer.<\/p>\n
“So he’s going to grow into that position and we expect him to do two or three things really well and build his game week to week over the year.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Shane Flanagan has admitted it would be a “stupid expectation” to claim St George Illawarra can win the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":508418,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,761,762,158,85],"class_list":["post-508417","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nrl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-national-rugby-league","tag-nationalrugbyleague","tag-nrl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/508417","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=508417"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/508417\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/508418"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=508417"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=508417"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=508417"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}