Paul McGregor shows other NRL clubs how to get the job done
AMID all the bleating about negative media coverage, I give you a shining example of positivity, of a coach taking responsibility and doing a cracking job while sometimes copping heaps. We salute you, Mr Mcgregor.
Dragons
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I WAS going to write my column today about Josh Dugan. But I’ve read and listened to all I can stomach from the bleeding hearts about the game’s so-called negative media.
So I will give them what they want, what I see as one of the most positive stories leading into week two of the NRL finals.
I want to tell you why I admire Paul McGregor for having the balls not blame others when things have gone wrong these past four years.
This time last year McGregor was forced to drop Dugan on the day of the second last round because he missed a team bus to Penrith. That came a week after he failed to turn up for a flight home from Brisbane.
So spare me the sob stories about it being five years since his last indiscretion. Enough said on that.
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And I reckon the character St George Illawarra players have shown in the past fortnight, in particular, is a tremendous reflection of their coach.
I also admire how last December, McGregor publicly declared this was the best squad he had coached.
It would have been easy for McGregor to say nothing and hope like hell it worked out.
But he drew his line in the sand and in doing so put his career on the line, even though most tipsters didn’t have the Dragons in their pre-season predictions for the top eight.
If it went pear-shaped this year, McGregor would have been gone. No two ways about it.
Yet here he is, one of six coaches still alive in the fight for the title.
And here’s the lesson we can learn from him. In any walk of life, if you get handed a job, you can’t sit there blaming the bloke who had it before you. And you can’t blame others for mistakes you have made.
It doesn’t matter if you’re coaching a football team or laying bricks on a building site.
Or talking like a moron on a podcast, or dancing nude on a pub table in the middle of Sydney on a Monday afternoon.
The stupidity of some of these arguments astounds me.
It doesn’t matter who you are, we are all responsible for our own actions. The good and the bad.
And we can create any image we want, so long as it is real.
I believe that is one of the biggest problems with many of the playing groups in the NRL these days.
Too often, they don’t have the right men to look up to. Too often, they cop bad advice.
Everyone says it: leadership starts at the top.
And you must have it in all forms. You have to have it in your board. In your coach. In your experienced players. They all have to be leaders in their own way.
And this is where McGregor has shown his greatest strength. Because there is not a man in the NRL who has had more reason to whinge these past few weeks.
In fact, there is not a coach who has gone through more in the past four years when it comes to criticism from inside and outside his club.
When McGregor took over from Steve Price in May, 2014, the Dragons were reeling with a roster under incredible salary-cap constraints.
They had started the season with three consecutive wins, only to buckle and lose six of their next seven to sit 13th on the ladder when Price copped the bullet.
McGregor had every excuse in the world to privately hint about the circumstances in which he took over. But he never did. He saw it as his opportunity. And he got to work.
Slowly but surely, he brought players in. He let others go.
Until last summer, when he was confident enough to tell me in December: “My fingerprints are over the roster. It takes a while to get the roster you want. And it has been a journey. But I feel it is the best squad I have coached.”
The Dragons haven’t finished this high up the ladder since Wayne Bennett was in town in 2011.
Yet still, after keeping his team in the top four for almost the entire season, McGregor continued to cop it.
Many, make that most, wanted McGregor sacked only a fortnight ago. I couldn’t believe what I saw after the Dragons’ 38-0 flogging by Canterbury.
I was making my way down to the press box when I heard the roar.
Grown men, young and old, standing side by side, ripping into players as they left the field.
It was ugly. Unfair, I thought.
But McGregor understands that the passion of the Dragons fans is also what makes them who they are. It’s part of the club’s DNA.
The fans can be completely unreasonable one week, unbreakable the next.
As McGregor said after that game at Jubilee Oval, they turn up and pay their money, so they are entitled to react how they see fit.
McGregor did his best not to take it personally.
Don’t worry, he was hurting. They all were.
James Graham struggled to hold his temper after he had a scarf thrown at him. Angry words with fans were exchanged.
Then in the dressing sheds, Graham and Matt Dufty went at it.
But after the emotion settled, they all handled it like men. Owned up. Moved forward.
Then they went to Newcastle and beat the Knights on Old Boys Day.
Last week it was up to Brisbane for the elimination final against Brisbane in front of a packed Suncorp Stadium.
That 48-18 victory was one of the greatest against-the-odds victories I can remember.
And the way Graham put his body on the line, do you reckon he deserved to have a scarf thrown at him?
So what’s it all say about McGregor as a coach?
I will tell you it says, McGregor can coach. And he knows the world in which he lives comes with its share of congratulations and criticism.
But it is his passion and competitiveness that make him jump out of bed every single day, not to win the popularity contest.
And so the Dragons go into this game on Saturday against South Sydney with hardly anyone giving them a chance, just like last week.
I don’t care what the result is, McGregor has done a mighty job with this footy team in 2018.
I reckon you write your own headlines in rugby league and in life.
And for McGregor, I say, Hail Mary.