{"id":52193,"date":"2025-08-08T05:55:03","date_gmt":"2025-08-08T05:55:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/52193\/"},"modified":"2025-08-08T05:55:03","modified_gmt":"2025-08-08T05:55:03","slug":"shane-flanagan-extends-deal-declares-what-he-wants-for-st-george-illawarra","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/52193\/","title":{"rendered":"Shane Flanagan extends deal, declares what he wants for St George Illawarra"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cWe could have played semi-finals this year had a few results gone our way.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t have to reinvent the wheel, we just need to make sure we win the close ones. There\u2019s not a lot to fix. We\u2019ll get there.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Dragons lost by a point to South Sydney, Parramatta and the Warriors, while they lost another four games by a converted try or less. They lost to the Bulldogs in the final minute last month, only for the NRL to later confirm the Dogs\u2019 should never have been awarded a fresh set of six when they scored the winner.<\/p>\n

Flanagan won a premiership with the Sharks, knows what success looks like, and said he had become better at delegating his workload. Like all senior coaches who have climbed rugby league\u2019s Everest, they also never question their ability during the tough times.<\/p>\n

The Dragons have Daniel Atkinson joining the club from Saturday\u2019s derby rivals Cronulla, while this week prop Josh Kerr agreed to return home from the Dolphins.<\/a><\/p>\n

\"St<\/p>\n

St George Illawarra caused an upset over Canberra last Saturday.Credit: Getty Images<\/p>\n

Flanagan confirmed Adam Doueihi,<\/a> who was seen as an ideal No. 13 for Parramatta-bound Jack de Belin<\/a>, found it too difficult to leave his hometown Wests Tigers.<\/p>\n

The Dragons have some excellent juniors in their ranks, including Dylan Egan and the Couchman brothers, Ryan and Toby, who are all injured, along with Hamish Stewart. Another local, Hayden Buchanan, will debut in the centres against Cronulla, with Mat Feagai out with a groin niggle.<\/p>\n

The club only has 25 players signed for next year, while Tyrell Sloan has already been told he is free to leave, and Lachie Ilias, who has been stranded in reserve grade<\/a>, has attracted interest from the Super League.<\/p>\n

As for beating Cronulla, and upsetting the Shire club\u2019s late, late push for a top-four berth, Flanagan said: \u201cYou only ever want to get the win, but to take the two points from them would be nice.\u201d<\/p>\n

Flanagan\u2019s future was never up for debate, but some of his counterparts face a nervous finish to the season, including Adam O\u2019Brien at Newcastle<\/a>, Des Hasler at the Gold Coast, and North Queensland\u2019s Todd Payten.<\/p>\n

Loading<\/p>\n

Watsford said of Flanagan\u2019s new deal: \u201cShane has played a critical role in setting the foundation for where this club is heading. He\u2019s re-instilled belief in our playing group, coaches and supporters together with reiterating the privilege of wearing the Red V.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cWe could have played semi-finals this year had a few results gone our way. \u201cWe don\u2019t have to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":52194,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,761,762,158,85],"class_list":["post-52193","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\/52193","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=52193"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52193\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/52194"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52193"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52193"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52193"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}