Axe hangs over Hook, but Dragons boss adamant he’s still the man for the job

Anthony Griffin is confident he’s still the man to lead the St George Illawarra Dragons to finals footy and towards an NRL premiership, even as word from inside the club is the joint venture bosses want to turf him for new coaching options.

Word around the Sydney and Wollongong club is Hook has lost his Red V players.

Not all of them, not yet, that is, but enough that a divide is beginning to form through the dressing room. Sources within the Dragons told the Sydney Morning Herald that Griffin’s coaching methodology and his approach to veteran players — especially Queensland trio Ben Hunt, Andrew McCullough, and Josh McGuire — has spurned some stars.

There’s other issues bubbling away under the surface too, including Tyrell Sloan’s drop to reserves, Zac Lomax regressing as a star, and Griffin’s victories: he’s won just 16 of 41 games.

Some at the club want to scoop up hot property coach Cameron Ciraldo as soon as possible.

If you ask Griffin though, he believes he’s still the best bloke for the job.

“Obviously, I wouldn’t be standing here [if I didn’t think I was],” the Red V boss added. “That type of situation is stuff that gets talked about outside. My role is to get the team ready for [Friday], that’s the main thing. All the other stuff is for the papers and for fans.

“That’s just part of the job,” the veteran NRL helmsman continued on Thursday. “That stuff happens. Most of that stuff gets played out outside our four walls. If I can, I’d like to leave it that way.”

One major reason Hook wants more time with his St George Illawarra Dragons project is the crop of juniors coming through the joint venture’s nurseries. Junior Amone, Cody Ramsey, and at times this season Sloan and Bud Sullivan have been given NRL run-outs, with Amone and Ramsey even bedding themselves into the top lineup.

In Griffin’s eyes, the Red V club is going to need more than a few quick-fire solutions to solve their roster and the long-term answer to that lies in the Sydney and Wollongong talent coming through.

“The people we’ve got here at the moment from a junior point of view and the guys we brought in are doing a really good job,” Griffin said.

“They’ll build into some of our key people when you talk about [Cody] Ramsey, Amone, Sullivan, Sloan. We’ve gone and blooded them probably a little bit ahead of schedule over the past couple of years with that in mind. That’s all going well and there’s always capacity [to go to the market]. Everyone has got an opportunity to add or to move your squad around.”

The Dragons would have to fork out around $475,000 to sack Hook.

The club faces another major battle in the fight to play finals footy in the 2022 NRL season this weekend when they come up against the Manly Sea Eagles at home at Kogarah on Friday evening.

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