'I don't think they've won a comp since': Flanno shifts focus to Sharks return

Dragons mentor Shane Flanagan set the scene for his eagerly anticipated return to Cronulla as opposition coach by pointing out that he is the only man to guide the Sharks to a premiership.

Flanagan, who admitted he couldn’t wait for St George Illawarra’s record 60-18 ANZAC Day thumping to end, immediately turned the focus onto next Sunday’s derby clash at PointsBet Stadium.

“I just want to get on with it and learn from it. Next week comes round real quick, and we play a team from down The Shire that I'm really interested in beating,” Flanagan said.

The 2016 premiership winning mentor parted company with the Sharks in controversial circumstances at the start of the 2019 season and had to wait until this year for the chance to coach another NRL team.

The Dragons have won four of their opening eight matches but will be coming off the second worst defensive performance in the history of the joint venture, after their 70-10 loss to Melbourne in 2000.

While Flanagan denied the match against the Sharks would be personal for him, he left no doubt about how much a win would mean.

“That’s been marked in the calendar for a while,” he said.

Asked if he had a point to prove after the way he departed the Sharks, Flanagan said: “I won a comp there. I don’t think they’ve won one since, have they”.

Flanagan coached Cronulla from 2010 to 2018 but his 185-game tenure was interrupted by a 12-month suspension over governance issues during the club’s peptides scandal.

He was again deregistered by the NRL at the start of the 2019 season for breaching the terms of his 2014 suspension and only cleared to return in 2022.

“That was ages ago. I’ve moved on,” Flanagan said. “I’ve coached at Manly [as an assistant in 2023], worked at Fox, worked on radio ...

“It’s not about me. I don’t care about me, and I don’t want it to be about me. I want it to be about the team and the club.”

After three games in 11 days, Flanagan now has 11 days to prepare the Dragons for the Sharks, who were top of the NRL ladder heading into the ANZAC Round.

With such a long break, centre Moses Suli may be a chance of playing after being deemed to have shown signs of a Category 1 head knock in the opening tackle of the match.

The St George Illawarra camp refused to blame the loss of Suli for their performance but with backrower Tom Eisenhuth moving to left centre the Roosters targeted that side in attack.

“We saw last week what the Dragons can do,” Flanagan said. We came back down to earth with a thud. I couldn’t wait for it to finish, to be honest.

"We were poor, no excuses. The challenge that this group has got is to grow and learn from this.”