The Ephemeral Nature of Triumph As Evidenced By the St George Illawara Dragons

What makes a champion? How can one sustain success? Why do the Dragons suck so much? These are just a few of the fundamental questions of life that will be partially and unsatisfactorily explored in the proceeding paragraphs.

On Sunday I watched my St George Dragons lose for the sixth time this NRL season. After failing to strike the final blow in yet another winnable game, this time against the Gold Coast Titans, I have been forced to accept now that the Dragons will probably miss the playoffs again this year. Even at this early stage, it’s just too hard to foresee the boys in the Red V being able to halt this run of failure. There are worse teams in the league, though (like the Warriors – HA!), so why does this in any way matter? Well the Dragons were champions just three years ago. This is the story of how the they came crashing down to earth.

At the beginning of the 2011 NRL season, the St George Dragons were sitting atop the rugby league world, looking proudly down on all others. NRL champions, two time defending minor premiers, and world club challenge winners. They were well established under coaching-Buddha Wayne Bennett and looking forward to another prosperous season. Melbourne was in tatters after the salary cap scandal of the previous year. Manly and Brisbane were coming off of poor seasons. Starting the season 10 and 1, the Dragons were in an equivalent position to Tony Montana in the film Scarface when he watched that blimp fly by with the scrolling message: The world is yours. You know, the moment just before it all fell apart. St George won just 4 of their final 13 games, and lost both playoff games on top of that. Wayne Bennett left the club that offseason to join the Knights and took Queensland star Darius Boyd, plus others, with him. Club legends Mark Gasnier and Ben Hornby retired, along with grand final man of the match Dean Young. In less than three years, over half of the grand final starting 13 has left the team.

It took a long time for the Dragons to become contenders. 2010 was the first title for the storied club since the St George Dragons won in 1979 (minus the Illawara, you notice – this was before the merger with the Steelers). It all changed when Wayne Bennett assumed the coaching position vacated by Nathan Brown in 2008. Just as his departure meant an exodus of star talent, his arrival saw the likes of Jeremy Smith, Darius Boyd (who seems to go wherever Bennett goes), Neville Costigan and Michael Weyman turn up in Wollongong. Bennett brought these guys to a team with a number of promising younger players, such as Ben Creagh, Trent Merrin and Jamie Soward, and created a winning atmosphere, a positive culture, and established a gameplan that suited this team. Somewhat ironically, that game plan is what is holding this team down now.

The Dragons rely on incredible discipline and structure. They play the percentages, off of Soward’s defensive kicking game, and thrive on opposition errors while minimising their own. Of course, without the superior skill sets of some of those championship players, this is hard to maintain. It means that the current Dragons are vulnerable to errors that tend to compound. If they don’t dominate territory and score early, they tend to lose. Sometimes they lose even when they do dominate territory (see Manly week 8) because they lack the creativity to break through a great defensive unit. They struggle immensely away from home. There are games where they simply never have a chance and there are games where they had the chance but weren’t clinical enough to take it. The pundits keep calling for them to loosen up and throw the ball around more, but it is easier said than done when asking a team to abandon their identity.

All of this has me wondering what make a championship team. That identity is definitely crucial. Coaching, playing talent and team unity are part of it too, naturally, but so many teams, especially in a league as tight as the NRL, can boast these things. Timing and circumstance are essential as well. When the Dragons won, Melbourne were clearly the best team, but had been disqualified for that season for busting the salary cap. In fact Melbourne is very much a bogey team for the Saints, who’ve lost 12 of the past 15 to them. They probably could not have won with Melbourne in contention.

There are teams like Melbourne and Manly, who dominate for years. The Brisbane Broncos in the 1990s were the same. Other teams only have a small window for success. Everything just falls into place - the stars align, as an astrologist may say. Most often these teams fall short and nobody thinks twice as they fade back into mediocrity. I’m reminded of another favourite team of mine, the Dallas Mavericks in the NBA. They famously came from behind to beat LeBron’s Miami team in the 2011 finals, but in the quest for long term success, they immediately dumped a number of older more experienced players, who were crucial to their title run, and went after younger, more glamorous free agents (Chris Paul, Dwight Howard and Deron Williams). They failed. Now they suck. There is still a light on the horizon for the Dragons going forward, with an aggressive and promising recruiting campaign in progress. The team looks very promisingly for next season, but it is very much the start of a new era.

The price of a sporting dynasty is immeasurable, and rarely achievable. Even singular triumph is sporadic and fleeting. Saints fans have learnt this the hard way, though not before experiencing the very finest that sports can offer. It is a punishing and demanding climb to reach the pinnacle of any sport. But it’s a short, sharp fall back down.