The optimism floating around my NRL 2016 Season Debriefs fades when I think about St. George Illawara Dragons. I gave the Dragons the glorious 'Most Depressing Team' award in my Bottom-8 awards thingy recently and there's a few different aspects of their work this season that led me down that path; from a soft forward pack to the club's constant pursuit of big name recruits while they let local juniors walk away.

Benji Marshall is apparently the elephant in the room and speculation about his NRL future plagued pretty much everything about the Dragons this season. This mainly came in the form of negativity, with people whinging and moaning about Marshall's form which I grew tired of very quickly. Marshall and Widdop certainly weren't as effective this season as they were last season, with the main difference being the forwards ahead of them.

On the Marshall/Widdop combination specifically though; it was always destined to not be overly successful. Neither Marshall nor Widdop is a halfback, both are better suited to wearing the No.6 jersey where they don't have to worry about basic halfback duties and get given the footy with players already in motion and space ahead of them. There have been moments when Marshall and Widdop combined in a slick set-play, however the Dragons were often left without a conductor, someone who steered the ship around and I don't really view this as being the fault of Widdop or Marshall. They aren't halfbacks and this is more another black mark against the recruitment skills of the Dragons as they snapped up two halves who are fairly similar as No.6's and thought they would be able to guide the Dragons to success.

Then, part of the fault has to sit with the forward pack. People have been very quick to talk about Marshall without offering a whisper about a Dragons forward pack, that were rarely dominating their opposition or were simply absent. Jason Nightingale and Josh Dugan led the Dragons' running metres this season and while forwards like James Graham, Jason Taumalolo, Andrew Fifita, Trent Merring, Jesse Bromwich, Sam Burgess, David Klemmer, Josh McGuire, Aaron Woods, Greg Bird, Paul Gallen and Ethan Lowe sit in the 3000m-4,200m bracket this season, Mike Cooper was the leading Dragons forward with 2,592m followed by Jack de Belin on 2,455m.

The Dragons didn't have a stand out forward who could spark them into gear (where's Trent Merrin at?) and it's a worrying sign that someone like Leeson Ah Mau went backwards this season. Last season, Ah Mau ran for 2,857m while this season saw Ah Mau run for 2,128m. Perhaps more compelling is that Ah Mau averaged 10.54m per-carry last season and dropped down to 9.58m per-carry. A metre might not seem like much, but with the Dragons losing Merrin to Penrith, they needed Ah Mau to at least stay level with last season's production, if not improve. Not to mention that Ah Mau gave the Dragons footwork through the middle last season and his stand out 2015 campaign, enabled the Dragons to roll down field with quick play-the-balls etc.

Picking up Tariq Sims mid-season was a wise move as he added some athletic ability to the Dragons forward pack as well as a splash of mongrel. The Dragons have solid forwards in Cooper, de Belin, Ah Mau, Russell Packer, Tyson Frizell and Joel Thompson but there's very little x-factor. Frizell was the only forward to feature in the top-five Dragons for tackle busts or offloads, with 43 tackle busts putting Frizell in 5th while it's all backs in the top-five offloaders.

St. George's backline is reason to keep heads high. Jason Nightingale was his usual exceptional self, Euan Aitken continues to steadily improve and is a future rep-centre, plus Taane Milne was given a crack this season. A future centre pairing of Aitken and Milne will be exciting for Dragons fans, as is a forward like Luciano Leilua who is exactly what the Dragons need in terms of a point of difference. 

The situation with Mitch Rein kinda sums up the Dragons for me; Rein will likely leave the Dragons this summer as the Dragons go a different route at dummy half. There appears to be little thought behind this as Rein was playing behind a forward pack that was consistently dominated, limiting his running opportunities. Even then, Rein was barely given much freedom to run and was used more as a distributor. Not giving Rein the deal he wants, instead forking out for someone like Cameron McInnes (Rabbitohs looked better with Damien Cook at hooker instead of McInnes) smells like the Dragons changing things for the sake of change without addressing the real problem/s.

This follows the theme of the Dragons basically living in the headlines, or high profile player market. Sims wasn't a big name signing, more of a low key deal and it was a good piece of business, so to was signing Milne from the Roosters before he had played NRL footy. Sims, Milne and Leilua were among the Dragons best players this season and instead of putting all Dragons players on edge by constant going after any player that's available, they are better off making low key signings that actually fix a few small problems.

Unfortunately for the Dragons, it appears as though the major problem is in their front-office. There's holes in their roster that need to be addressed and it feels like their front-office want to go down the quick fix route, where I'd suggest that they look to keep a core group together and then attack a Premiership in a year or two. The Dragons have talent and more notably young talent, they just need to A) keep it and B) give it time to simmer.