Sign up now!!!<\/a><\/p>\n‘Bulls**t’ Crawley on Te’o’s exit | 02:56<\/p>\n
\u201cIf that\u2019s Ethan Strange, who is a five-eighth, he goes through. That\u2019s my concern with the Dragons at the moment. <\/p>\n
\u201cThey bought Keaon Koloamatangi for next year, and he\u2019s a great signing, but I don\u2019t see the problem at the Dragons there. <\/p>\n
\u201cKyle signed for another year and the club spoke about going out and getting a top flight No.7. Atkinson\u2019s the bloke they landed on. <\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m not saying he\u2019s not going to be a good player. What I\u2019m saying is it stared us in the face the other day. They had so many opportunities within that game.\u201d <\/p>\n
With the exception of Koloamatangi, Flanagan has struggled to land a big fish and arguably only got the Souths star because they paid overs and the Rabbitohs knew Payne Haas was coming. <\/p>\n
Crawley noted Flanagan has brought ageing players at the back end of their careers to the club in Clint Gutherson, Damien Cook and Valentine Holmes, who are nearing the end of their careers. <\/p>\n
\u201cThis is where their recruitment\u2019s not right,\u201d Crawley said. <\/p>\n
Bedel breaks down Te’o’s Broncos exit | 03:58<\/p>\n
\u201cSince Flanagan\u2019s arrived he\u2019s bought Clint Gutherson. Jason Ryles I criticised him when he let Gutho go, but hindsight tells you, by signing Isaiah Iongi and letting Gutherson go was the right move. <\/p>\n
\u201cGutho has been a tremendous competitive player over the stretch of his career, but he is getting towards the back end. He hasn\u2019t got the speed he once had. And he\u2019s still signed for another year beyond this. <\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019ve got Damien Cook there and he\u2019s playing well, but he\u2019s getting another year, so Flanagan\u2019s got his fingerprints over his squad. He shouldn\u2019t have got an extension when he did.\u201d <\/p>\n
However, Ricco countered that hindsight is a cop-out and the Dragons needed some veteran leadership when they landed those players. <\/p>\n
\u201cYou can\u2019t have your cake and eat it too,\u201d Riccio said. <\/p>\n
‘Huge in’ Warriors welcome back Metcalf | 01:38<\/p>\n
\u201cYou can\u2019t say he was a good signing at the time and now it\u2019s not. You\u2019ve got to get the players into the club first.\u201d <\/p>\n
However, Crawley believes the Dragons and coach Flanagan are burying their heads in the sand if they think a halves combination of Flanagan and Atkinson will be good enough at NRL level. <\/p>\n
\u201cAt the start of the season, I had concerns when I looked at the Dragons and I\u2019m thinking to myself, of all the rosters in the competition, when it comes to attack, I think they\u2019re the most limited,\u201d Crawley said. <\/p>\n
\u201cAnd yet he\u2019s got halves there, who they created so many opportunities there the other day and it won\u2019t work.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Shane Flanagan\u2019s long-term extension at the Dragons has been called into question as he persists with a halves…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":561285,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[64,63,45716,276635,82632,276801,17343,4420,4437,52527,276796,763,276797,84257,39271,4556,190139,10747,4746,276799,11396,13390,276690,4583,85,4563,80793,276798,276802,4412,276800],"class_list":["post-561284","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-back-end","tag-ben-teo","tag-broncos-v","tag-club-spoke","tag-daily-telegraph","tag-damien-cook","tag-daniel-atkinson","tag-dave-riccio","tag-extension-question","tag-fox-league","tag-had-a-gutful","tag-halves-combination","tag-halves-pairing","tag-jason-ryles","tag-long-term-extension","tag-luke-metcalf","tag-mark-st-john","tag-multiple-opportunities","tag-paul-crawley","tag-payne-haas","tag-peter-bedel","tag-shane-flanagan","tag-sports","tag-st-george-illawarra-dragons","tag-starting-halfback","tag-teams-analysis","tag-tremendous-competitive-player","tag-valentine-holmes","tag-veteran-leadership"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/561284","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=561284"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/561284\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/561285"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=561284"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=561284"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=561284"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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