{"id":508662,"date":"2026-02-28T01:06:13","date_gmt":"2026-02-28T01:06:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/508662\/"},"modified":"2026-02-28T01:06:13","modified_gmt":"2026-02-28T01:06:13","slug":"dragons-coach-admits-st-george-illawarra-wont-win-premiership-this-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/508662\/","title":{"rendered":"Dragons coach admits St George Illawarra won&#8217;t win premiership this year"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>It\u2019s not often you hear a coach concede before a ball has been kicked that their team can\u2019t win the competition, even if they know that to be the case.<\/p>\n<p>But for Dragons coach Shane Flanagan it makes no sense to set \u201cstupid expectations\u201d of a rebuilding St George Illawarra team that finished third from the bottom last season.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Dragons coach Shane Flanagan at the NRL fan festival in downtown Las Vegas.\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/86860faf830ad2fb5a516c7c93283ea7b71277fd.jpeg\" height=\"390\" width=\"584\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Dragons coach Shane Flanagan at the NRL fan festival in downtown Las Vegas.Credit: Getty Images<\/p>\n<p>Flanagan raised eyebrows in the lead-up to the round-one headliner against Canterbury at Allegiant Stadium on Sunday Australian time, admitting that \u201cwe probably know that we\u2019re not going to win the comp this year\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>It was doubtful Flanagan was telling St George Illawarra supporters anything they didn\u2019t know.<\/p>\n<p>They are considered outsiders to be near the top eight, let alone challenge for a first premiership or grand final appearance in 16 years.<\/p>\n<p>If it sounded defeatist, Flanagan said he was just being honest about the Dragons\u2019 immediate prospects, believing they will be better placed next year, by which time he hopes his play-making combination will be bedded in and Kangaroos forward Keaon Koloamatangi will have joined from South Sydney on a five-year $5 million contract.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"The club mascot greet fans in the lead-up to the game against the Bulldogs.\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/e664a05ccd0d0f6d73effcf6347c4d58cd7a2c5a.jpeg\" height=\"390\" width=\"584\" \/><\/p>\n<p>The club mascot greet fans in the lead-up to the game against the Bulldogs.Credit: Getty Images<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019d love to say we\u2019re good enough, we\u2019re the big dogs to go at it this year,\u201d he said on the eve of the clash with the Bulldogs. \u201cWe\u2019ll win a lot of good footy games this year. But I\u2019m just realistic.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019ve obviously had a lot of new staff come in, some new players come in, Keaon [is] coming in next year. We\u2019d like to think we\u2019re going to get maybe two, three more signings, big ones, for next year. We\u2019re building towards that.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It\u2019s not often you hear a coach concede before a ball has been kicked that their team can\u2019t&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":508663,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,761,762,158,85],"class_list":["post-508662","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\/508662","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=508662"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/508662\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/508663"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=508662"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=508662"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=508662"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}