{"id":620606,"date":"2026-04-21T04:09:11","date_gmt":"2026-04-21T04:09:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/620606\/"},"modified":"2026-04-21T04:09:11","modified_gmt":"2026-04-21T04:09:11","slug":"michael-ennis-departs-the-st-george-illawarra-dragons-shane-flanagan-sacked-dragons-coaching-overhaul-news-videos-highlights","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/620606\/","title":{"rendered":"Michael Ennis departs the St George Illawarra Dragons, Shane Flanagan sacked, Dragons coaching overhaul, news, videos, highlights"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dragons assistant coach Michael Ennis has reportedly departed the club in the wake of Shane Flanagan and head of football Ben Haran being shown the door.<\/a><\/p>\n

According to Code Sports<\/a>, Ennis will follow Flanagan in leaving St George Illawarra after a short stint as the club\u2019s attacking coach.<\/p>\n

Watch every game of every round of the Premiership Season LIVE with no ad-breaks during play on FOX LEAGUE, available on Kayo Sports | New to Kayo? Join now and get your first month for just $1<\/a>.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Ennis joined as an assistant ahead of the 2026 season, having reunited with Flanagan after the pair enjoyed a premiership-winning season in 2016.<\/p>\n

Dean Young, meanwhile, has been in control of the Dragons\u2019 defence and will remain as the interim head coach <\/a>for the remainder of the season.<\/p>\n

A former premiership-winner with the club during his playing days, Young has been coaching for 14 years and is currently an assistant coach of the NSW Blues under Laurie Daley.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a privilege to lead this club,\u201d Young said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis current group of players mean a lot to me. I want to support them through this transition.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur focus right now is staying connected as a team and being the best version of ourselves on Anzac Day.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ennis\u2019 departure marks an eventful 24 hours for the embattled Red V, who are yet to win a game this season.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Dragons chairman Andrew Lancaster and chief executive Tim Watsford said Flanagan\u2019s position at the club was no longer tenable in a press conference on Monday.<\/p>\n

MORE NRL NEWS<\/p>\n

BURNING Qs: Dominoes to fall after Flanno axing; ugly recruitment truth laid bare<\/a><\/p>\n

TEAM TIPS: Dragons\u2019 clean-out on the cards after Flanno sacking; Bulldogs\u2019 huge boost <\/a><\/p>\n

CONTENDERS: Why obvious choice isn\u2019t a lock for the job<\/a><\/p>\n

Kyle treatment caused players split? | 01:22<\/p>\n

Lancaster also took a swipe at media coverage of the club this season.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere has been a lot of media coverage of the Dragons over these past few weeks. A lot of it absolutely deserved. Some of it poor, and some of it about personal agendas,\u201d Lancaster said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been in media longer than most. Our coverage of this great game, of this great club, should be better.<\/p>\n

\u201cReaders, viewers and listeners do deserve better.<\/p>\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t say it was unfair, I said a lot of it was poor. And I said there were personal agendas being dealt with along the way.\u201d<\/p>\n

In response to those comments, NRL360 host Braith Anasta fired back by saying they were \u201cweak as piss\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s a convenient narrative Andrew Lancaster is pushing to try and smother his own poor leadership and decisions that he has made the last couple of years,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Braith: “Have some balls!” | 01:41<\/p>\n

Get all the latest NRL news, highlights and analysis delivered straight to your inbox with Fox Sports Sportmail. Sign up now!!!<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cTo try and point his finger at the media and me, indirectly, I thought was weak as piss, just like his press conference was. He took no accountability today.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe had an opportunity to have some backbone, to have some balls and sit there and say I\u2019ve made some poor decisions, we\u2019ve made some poor decisions, we\u2019ve got it wrong at times.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut to reiterate to the fans, the St George Illawarra fans that we\u2019re not going to stand for it any longer. We\u2019re going to make the right decisions moving forward and we\u2019re going to be better.<\/p>\n

\u201cInstead, he tried to blame it on everyone else bar himself and I don\u2019t know if he\u2019s come at me or not but he\u2019s come at the media. You don\u2019t need to be Einstein to work out that they\u2019ve created records by losing 11 games in a row.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dragons assistant coach Michael Ennis has reportedly departed the club in the wake of Shane Flanagan and head…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":620607,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,761,762,158,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-620606","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nrl","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-national-rugby-league","11":"tag-nationalrugbyleague","12":"tag-nrl","13":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/620606","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=620606"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/620606\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/620607"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=620606"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=620606"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=620606"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}