Dragons forward Tyson Frizell says the Red V will not revert to old habits and choke their season away
TYSON Frizell knows what you think. He knows what you’re saying about the Dragons, how they’re going to choke. But he says you can put all that away right now, cause it’s not going to happen.
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TYSON Frizell knows what you’re thinking about his football team.
After bursting out of the gates to start the season St George Illawarra suffered their first back-to-back loss of the season after going down to Wests last weekend.
The New South Wales Blues forward knows rugby league fans are beginning to throw around the dreaded ‘c’ word.
He’s heard it for himself. He’s seen it being thrown around on social media.
He knew it was coming, that fans have been itching at the opportunity to slam his side as ‘chokers’.
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“We know, it’s been spoken about during the middle of the year and even spoke at the start of the year when we had our run, people are just waiting for that time to come,” he said.
“So I guess when you have two losses in a row that’s when it comes up again.”
As well as the tag of being chokers, the Dragons have earned themselves the unwanted reputation of being the kind of side that fades away in the back end the season.
In 2017 the Red V led the competition with seven from eight wins in the opening two months of the season but went on to miss the finals.
“It’s happened before, so rightly so people can try to write-us off,” Frizell said.
“It’s happened in the past at this time of the year but I guess now we are sitting in a different position, we have held out spot for a long time.
“We’re not playing that bad, a lot of teams are playing really well at the moment and I guess we are going through that stage where we are struggling to put eighty minute performances.”
Frizell did not travel with the Dragons’ squad to Townsville for Saturday’s match against the Cowboys and is reportedly suffering a back injury.
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But Frizell insisted, despite their back-to-back losses, no-one within the club had hit the panic button just yet.
He also revealed, his is in a better position to rebound from any lapses in form on their run into the September.
“It’s a lot more relaxed, at stages last year we tried to find too many things with what was going wrong,” he said.
“We know what we need to do and like I said we are only one good performance away from getting back to the footy I know we can play.
“I honestly think it’s one good game for us to click into gear and start our run in the finals.”
The Origin and representative period was a disruption to their weekly preparations with the likes of Ben Hunt, Tyson Frizell, Tariq Sims, Jack De Belin all missing a significant chunks of training during that time.
“A lot of us haven’t been together for a few weeks now, it’s been a while since we’ve been able to do video together and prepare for a game together. Having a full week back together now has given everyone some confidence,” Frizell said.
The Dragons will also be without winger Nene McDonald after he picked up a foot injury against the Tigers last weekend.
Originally published as Dragons forward Tyson Frizell says the Red V will not revert to old habits and choke their season away
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