Dean Young destined to be a coach for as long as anyone can remember

Dean Young is ready to take over at St George Illawarra and his pedigree suggests he will be a raging success.

St George Illawarra’s Dean Young will takeover from Paul McGregor next week. Picture: Gregg Porteous

Peter O’Sullivan was the Under-20s coach at St George when he ushered a 16-year-old Dean Young into his team. The recommendation had come from Young’s father Craig, a Dragons legend who remains part of the joint venture’s fabric.

“I hadn’t really seen him play and Craig told me he was the best player in their SG Ball team,” O’Sullivan, now the Warriors recruitment boss, recalls.

“When he got to training he absolutely blew me away. Smartest young player I have ever had anything to do with.

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“He is the package. I would never have dreamt he would not be a first grade coach at some point. It was a given.”

O’Sullivan has got plenty right over the years and he appears to have nailed it again with Young, now in charge of St George Illawarra after taking the reins from Paul McGregor following Friday night’s game against Parramatta.

He has six weeks to prove his worth and he will squeeze every bit of juice from the lemon.

He was only a few years into his stint as a first grade player when a golden staph infection threatened to take it all away. Young basically played on one leg thereafter, his training restricted but his desire insatiable.

When he retired at 29, former coach Wayne Bennett described Young as his inspiration.

“As a coach, you can’t let him down because Dean Young never found an excuse in his life,” Bennett said at the time.

Former teammates fondly recall Young in the latter stages of his career, training with the team once a week and celebrating tries out of dummy half like his life depended on it.

The rest of his week was spent in the rehab group, tirelessly doing everything in his power to ensure he could play.

When Wendell Sailor joined the Dragons, Young and his wife Brooke were among the first to make Sailor and his family feel welcome.

Sailor’s son Tristan is now playing under Young.

“He is that bloke that every club needs, that every bloke wants to play with,” said Wendell Sailor.

“He had so much heart. There were times when he couldn’t get out of the bathtub because of his knees. We all respected playing with him. He gets it.”

He seemingly gets it as a coach as well. He won a premiership in 2010, famously embraced his father after the fulltime siren, and then retired two years later. He walked straight into a job with the Dragons, of late as assistant to McGregor.

“In the six weeks you will get to see the team, maybe not play differently, but he will have a lot of non-negotiables that the players and team will have to abide by,” said the club’s Canterbury Cup coach Mathew Head, who grew up playing rugby league and cricket with Young in Dapto.

“The type of guy he is and the way he plays, he coaches that way. But he also wants some freedom for the players to express themselves. A real good guy — one of the nice guys in the sport. “

Nice guys don’t always make great coaches. The sport is littered with the carcasses of nice guys who were dispensed with by ruthless clubs craving success. McGregor can vouch for that.

There will be naysayers as frustrated fans urge the club to hire an outsider rather than another coach from within the Red V family. There will no doubt be a push for others, among them former North Queensland coach Paul Green and Young’s fellow assistant Shane Flanagan.

Young, now 36, will have to deal with accusations of nepotism if he is to get the job, given Craig is a member of the board.

Yet many will tell you they could do worse. He knows the club, bled for the club, was knocked into next week by Greg Inglis for the club, and endured debilitating pain for the club.

Young has served an apprenticeship and he will have plenty of supporters. He has six weeks to win over everyone else.