Amid all the noise in the past couple of weeks that Flanagan would face the axe, Dragons assistant Dean Young was the odds-on favourite to take over in an interim role whenever Flanagan was jettisoned. <\/p>\n
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Now, that day has arrived but when Dragons chairman Andrew Lancaster and CEO Tim Watsford faced the media to reveal Flanagan and head of football Ben Haran had left the club by mutual agreement, there was no mention of who would be named in the interim role for the remainder of the season.<\/p>\n
Oddly, Lancaster told reporters that a decision hasn\u2019t been made on that front.<\/p>\n
News leaked early Monday morning of Flanagan\u2019s exit. In an interesting twist an hour later, SMH journalist Danny Weidler appeared on the Big Sports Breakfast radio show to reveal that the reason that there\u2019s some pushback from some factions in the club that believe Young isn\u2019t the man for the job \u2013 interim or full time.<\/p>\n
Adding to the complication is the fact the Dragons operate as a 50-50 joint venture between the St George Football Club and the WIN Corporation, which purchased the Illawarra Steelers\u2019 stake in 2018.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe board\u2019s going to have to really change their mind (to give Young the full-time gig),\u201d Weidler said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a very political club, the Dragons, as you know and it\u2019s a unique sort of make-up the way that they\u2019ve got the two sides of the board, I guess, is an easy way to say it. And there is definitely opposition to Dean being the full-time coach.\u201d<\/p>\n
Weidler also posted to social media site X before the Dragons\u2019 Monday press conference, revealing Flanagan met with Lancaster on Sunday night to be relieved of his duties.<\/p>\n
In that same post, Weidler wrote that there wouldn\u2019t be an interim coach named immediately as Young \u201cis not loved by parts of the club\u201d.<\/p>\n
Blues coach Laurie Daley was incredulous when he heard what Weidler had to say.<\/p>\n
Daley has Young on his NSW coaching staff so obviously holds the Dragons assistant in high regard.<\/p>\n
\u201cI can\u2019t believe that. I can\u2019t believe that,\u201d Daley responded when Weidler said the Dragons are still not sold on Young.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m stunned \u2026 He\u2019s a first-grade coach every day of the week.\u201d<\/p>\n
Weidler went onto list a couple of the reasons behind the Dragons\u2019 resistance to promote Young, one of those was the assistant coach\u2019s role in the messy exit of prop Francis Molo. <\/p>\n
The other stemmed from a reported incident in an interview that was said to have perturbed club brass.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are a number of elements, even including the fact that when Young went for a Zoom interview for a position, there were claims that he turned up in a training shirt or training singlet. Now, I checked that and he was in a club polo shirt from what I\u2019ve been told,\u201d Weidler said. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe Dragons still discuss the Zoom style interview. They say Young turned up wearing a training singlet. That is stuck in the memory of some, but I have been told that he was actually wearing a club polo shirt, which is reasonable.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo these are all things that have been talked about, whispered about.\u201d<\/p>\n
Daley believed it was clear what was going on and warned Young about accepting if offered the interim role. <\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re leaking that \u2026 Why would you want the interim role? There\u2019s nothing to gain when they\u2019re leaking stuff about you. I\u2019ll tell you what, though he\u2019ll get a job somewhere,\u201d Daley said.<\/p>\n
It prompted Weidler to ask: \u201cYou\u2019re passionate about this aren\u2019t you Loz?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI am because I know how good a young coach he is,\u201d the Blues coach responded.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou could ask Wayne Bennett, you could ask Frank Ponissi, you could ask Craig Bellamy, you could ask the people at the Cowboys, and I\u2019ll tell you what, they\u2019ll all give him a glowing reference. You can ask the players in the Origin Squad last year.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Shane Flanagan era at the Dragons is officially over but who the club turns to as interim…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":618289,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[54497,64,63,299768,299766,299774,79390,299770,299772,8089,117605,299769,299765,763,28067,5330,6086,299767,279832,68536,6406,284506,761,762,158,299773,668,4583,85,299763,299764,299771,1651],"class_list":{"0":"post-618288","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nrl","8":"tag-andrew-lancaster","9":"tag-au","10":"tag-australia","11":"tag-ben-haran","12":"tag-ben-haron","13":"tag-bizarre-report","14":"tag-blues-coach","15":"tag-club-polo-shirt","16":"tag-club-turns","17":"tag-craig-bellamy","18":"tag-danny-weidler","19":"tag-dragons-assistant","20":"tag-dragons-ceo","21":"tag-fox-league","22":"tag-francis-molo","23":"tag-head-coach","24":"tag-interim-coach","25":"tag-interim-coaching-role","26":"tag-interim-role","27":"tag-joint-venture","28":"tag-laurie-daley","29":"tag-mutual-agreement","30":"tag-national-rugby-league","31":"tag-nationalrugbyleague","32":"tag-nrl","33":"tag-perturbed-club-brass","34":"tag-press-conference","35":"tag-shane-flanagan","36":"tag-sports","37":"tag-st-george-football-club","38":"tag-style-interview","39":"tag-training-singlet","40":"tag-wayne-bennett"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/618288","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=618288"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/618288\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/618289"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=618288"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=618288"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=618288"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}