New Dragons coach Shane Flanagan has ruled out making any rash signings as he focuses on building the strongest possible roster for 2025, while revealing he was considering Zac Lomax and Tyrell Sloan in a dual fullback role.
Flanagan, who will return to NRL coaching next season for the first time since his 2019 departure from the Sharks, admits that in the past he would have rushed to fill his roster but is now prepared to wait for the right player to become available.
Instead, the 2016 premiership winning mentor has vowed to improve the talent already in the St George Illawarra ranks, with an immediate focus on fitness – an area he believed the team lacked last season.
In a wide-ranging interview with NRL.com, Flanagan discussed his first pre-season in charge of the Red V and plans to lift the club from the lower rungs of the premiership ladder in 2023 to the top, including:
A former Dragons player, Flanagan has a good understanding of the club’s pathways after spending the 2020 season in a consulting role and predicted more juniors would follow the likes of Sloan and the Couchman twins, Toby and Ryan, into first grade.
However, for the Red V to become a premiership force again, Flanagan believes will need to sign three or four top line players of the calibre of Addin Fonua-Blake Tom Dearden and Joey Manu, who may be available for the 2025 season.
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“I get a lot of messages about ‘why haven’t we signed some players’. Well, the message from me is that there’s not the players available,” Flanagan said. “The players that are available now are available for a reason.
“I want good players here but probably because I’m a little bit older now, whereas I would have jumped at a few players in the past and gone to sign them for two or three years, I want to make sure the 2025 roster is the best roster I can get.
“I want to get the good players here in 2025 and I don’t want to go and sign players and then all of a sudden realise that I don’t want them in 2025, so let’s turn the roster that I’ve got now into the best they can possibly be and then add a few new good ones.”
Among the talent already at his disposal are Lomax and Sloan – two players widely acknowledged across the game as possessing the ability to become representative stars but who some fear may never reach their potential.
Flanagan hopes Sloan can establish himself as St George Illawarra’s long term No.1 but is also excited about the possibility of Lomax moving to fullback and may consider the pair swapping positions during matches.
Sloan played on the wing in the highly regarded Steelers team that won the 2019 SG Ball grand final, while Lomax has established himself at right centre, but both grew up playing fullback.