Paul Kent: How clueless Paul Vaughan set himself up for failure at the Dragons

Paul Vaughan had been in the gun at the Dragons ever since Anthony Griffin arrived but he was just too clueless to see it – and now it’s cost him his job, writes Paul Kent.

St George Dragons NRL player, Paul Vaughan walks his dog at Shellharbour Beach after throwing a party at his home and breaking Covid restrictions, damaging the reputation of the NRL Tuesday July 6/2021. Picture: Simon Bullard/News Corp

Paul Vaughan was the architect of his own dismissal yesterday.

He was overpaid at the Dragons and he gave them an opportunity, through his own stupidity, to sack him and create space in their salary cap.

All those other worries the club had about Vaughan have suddenly washed away.

Vaughan was a poor influence at the club, but a former Australian and NSW representative who was still being paid like a representative player even though he was no longer performing like one.

For a club looking to rebuild its culture, which included being tremendously active in the player market to stimulate the change, he gave them the perfect opportunity.

Vaughan simply couldn’t see it.

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Paul Vaughan was being paid like a rep star but not performing like it. Picture: AAP Image/Joel Carrett

He wanted to quit the Dragons last season because it wasn’t working out the way he thought it should have been, until somebody pulled him aside.

Listen, they said, you are earning $800,000 a season to play at the Dragons and, if you quit, not another team in the competition will go even close to paying that.

At that Vaughan quickly doused his protest, until Saturday when he gave them the perfect opportunity to sack him and sever the deal.

Unlike Vaughan, Jack de Belin was most likely saved by his talent.

De Belin owes a great debt to the Dragons and as soon as he feels obliged to begin paying it back he should start immediately. Anytime you are ready, Jack.

For more than two full seasons de Belin was stood down from playing for the Dragons while the courts tried him on rape charges he vigorously denied.

The charges were ultimately dropped after two hung juries and for the entire duration de Belin was out the Dragons continued to pay him.

Jack de Belin owes the Dragons for them continuing to employ him during his court case. Picture: Mark Kolbe/Getty Images

Both players are symptomatic of the current weakness in the game, one which becomes an almost weekly complaint from fans around the game about professional footballers not putting in what they consider to be professional performances.

The two great debates in the game are what it takes to create a winning culture at a club, and those clubs who have it and those that don’t, and the other being whether the recent rule changes are creating these lopsided scorelines.

Rabbitohs coach Wayne Bennett put a twist on it at the weekend’s close when he shifted blame from the players and their efforts to a toxic culture within some clubs.

For the most, Bennett was right, but for the wrong reasons.

Some clubs have awful trouble recognising what a healthy culture looks like. They do not know what winning looks like, or even how to find it, which Bennett was speaking to.

It was also a job application from Bennett, a nod to those clubs looking for a coach that he remains unemployed for next season and is still in the market.

He cloaked it as a defence of players because that is what he has become, nowadays, a players’ coach who knows the first lesson of modern coaching is that a coach is dead once he has lost the dressing room.

Dragons coach Anthony Griffin has taken the long-haul approach, knowing Vaughan’s sacking will hurt the club short term but will ultimately strengthen the Dragons for the long term.

Culture, it has been commonly accepted, is the behaviour players are willing to walk past. What is acceptable, and what is not?

And while some are pointing solely at the new rules introduced this season as the reason for the blowouts the deep truth is that many teams are struggling to find the performance that could be expected

Some teams, it appears, simply do not want to put their bodies on the line.

Canberra trailed Gold Coast 6-0 on Saturday when David Fifita was sin-binned in the 30th minute, just about the time fatigue is supposed to be setting in on teams. That’s generally when middle forwards are interchanged and can take a rest.

The 12-man Titans were vulnerable, ripe for the Raiders to kick back on the scoreboard.

Instead, Canberra stopped tackling and Gold Coast scored three tries despite the one-man disadvantage and led 22-0 at the break.

That wasn’t fatigue.

The rules cannot be blamed for Canberra’s reluctance to put a shoulder into their tackles.

Wests Tigers were missing tackles almost from the kick-off against South Sydney on the weekend, well before fatigue had any chance of setting in.

Not even the players were buying this excuse of new rules, or player fatigue.

“It’s sad that I get blamed for defensive decisions,” winger David Nofoaluma posted on social media yesterday.

“In the first half our A and B defenders didn’t get up to put pressure than (sic) Moses (Mbye) was getting caught so left 3 on 2 for myself and Jet (James Roberts).

“In second half we got up in one line of defence and if you watched 2nd half D’d very well.”

Nofoaluma was saying the Tigers’ middle forwards were failing to pressure the Rabbitohs’ attack which left Moses Mbye caught out defensively, looking to cover for them, which gave the Rabbitohs a three on two overlap.

Once they began defending properly they were back in the contest, even if they were gone on the scoreboard.

Good clubs have a character first, talent second mentality and benefit from it.

The Dragons, like other struggling clubs, have been overpaying for talent, hoping for a short-term fix that never comes.

Originally published as Paul Kent: How clueless Paul Vaughan set himself up for failure at the Dragons