Albanese has seen this story<\/a> play out before, as a board member when the Rabbitohs re-entered the NRL and played a key role in the historic club\u2019s emergence from an existential crisis into a premiership heavyweight.<\/p>\nIt\u2019s a trajectory he’s confident the Dragons are currently on as they look to emerge from a challenging period.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have no doubt this will be the day in which people look back and say that\u2019s when the Dragons went from where they are today into the success that historically they have had,\u201d Albanese said.<\/p>\n
While the club has struggled on the field, there has been plenty of reason for hope and optimism in the past few weeks.<\/p>\n
Interim coach Dean Young has brought a fresh outlook to the playing group and shaken up their training routines in a bid to deliver a breakthrough victory.<\/p>\n
The Dragons have continued to rebuild around a young core of talented local juniors, with the Couchman twins, Hamish Stewart and Dylan Egan headlining a promising crop of forwards.<\/p>\n
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Mighty Helpful player of the round: Toby Couchman<\/p>\n
The youngsters continue to improve and have been among the side\u2019s standout performers this year.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t have to do too much with them,\u201d Young said. \u201cThey\u2019re hungry, they\u2019re motivated, they\u2019re disciplined and they\u2019re professional.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just need to support them and if they\u2019re getting off track, we\u2019ll get them back on track. I don\u2019t have to coach those young guys much, they are doing it all themselves.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe know we\u2019re heading in the right direction with that core group but we can\u2019t just expect they\u2019re going to turn it around. Everyone needs to buy in and make sure they\u2019re focused on the job. From there, we get better.\u201d<\/p>\n
Off the field, Dragons staff have been busy as they look to complement a talented core of local juniors with high-profile recruits.<\/p>\n
Keaon Koloamatangi was the first representative star to sign before Christmas and has been joined by Phil Sami, Scott Drinkwater and, most recently, Luke Metcalf.<\/p>\n
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Hamish Stewart Try<\/p>\n
The new high-performance facility has played a key role in luring the group to Wollongong and Young said it\u2019s not hard to see why.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf I\u2019m a player on the outside and I\u2019m looking at the young players we\u2019ve got,\u201d Young said. \u201cI\u2019m looking at this facility and then I\u2019m looking at Keaon, Drinkwater, Philip Sami walking through the door.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou can tell the club\u2019s on the improve and I\u2019m sure it has an impact.\u201d<\/p>\n
Amid the excitement of moving into a shiny new building, comes the recognition this is just the beginning.<\/p>\n
Young has been eager to stress results won\u2019t automatically flow now the squad is in a state-of-the-art complex. Instead, the players must work hard to make the most of the facilities on offer to them.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt doesn\u2019t guarantee anything,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s a nice to have. From a connection side, this is the first time that admin and the football department have worked under the same roof and that\u2019s special.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs a whole club we want to be connected and to have something like this, there\u2019s no excuses now.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has officially opened a new era for the St George Illawarra Dragons as optimism…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":686732,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":["post-687675","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/687675","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=687675"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/687675\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/686732"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=687675"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=687675"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=687675"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}