Phil Gould’s Harsh Criticism of the Dragons’ Leadership
Phil Gould has delivered a scathing assessment of the St George Illawarra Dragons’ leadership, targeting the veteran core and urging them to take accountability for the team’s disastrous 0-5 start to the 2026 season. He emphasized that the pressure of the Dragons’ rebuild should not fall on the young players but instead on the older group to “go out and fix it” after their demoralizing loss to the Cowboys, which marked their ninth consecutive defeat.
“You can see this in the Dragons. It’s progressively got worse each week to the point where they have a performance like that, and that might be rock bottom on the weekend,” Gould said on 100% Footy.
Gould highlighted that it would be very interesting to see what coach Shane Flanagan does with the team list on Tuesday. While the club has some outstanding young players, he believes that when a team is in a rut like this, it’s not up to the young players to come and pick the team out of it.
“It’s not their problem to solve. The other players that got them in this mess are the ones that have got to grind their way out of it and get your team going good, so then you can blood those young players and bring them into a better environment.”
The 32-0 thumping on Saturday would have been a harrowing experience for young players caught in the crossfire of a frustrated home crowd. Gould noted that it was particularly difficult for some of these players to stand in the middle of Kogarah Oval and be booed by the crowd, despite having no say in how the Dragons reached this point in the competition.
Although the light at the end of the tunnel looks further away than ever, Gould admitted that all it takes is a week for the confidence and mentality of an NRL team to turn their luck around.
“They’ve got incrementally worse each week to the point where there was no confidence and no resilience in what they were doing the other night,” Gould said.
But in the space of a week, you can turn that around. They’re experienced footballers. There are a lot of those blokes that have played a lot of NRL football, and my belief is it’s their job to turn it around, not bring kids in for the sake of keeping the fans happy or keeping the media happy or whatever the reason is for bringing them in.
“The people that got you in this mess are the ones that have got to get you out of it in the short term. Create a better environment and a more confident environment before you go blooding those kids and making it their problem.”
Gould pointed out that there were a couple of kids in that game the other night who were just deer in the headlights because of what was happening around them. He criticized the lack of leadership and direction from the senior players.
“How do they respond when their senior players are playing like that? That can dent their confidence for years when that experience is bad.”
He added that Flanagan has a responsibility to those young players as well as the club. The people that they’ve bought and the people that they’ve got the most experience are the ones that should put their hand up and say, “we’ll dig you out of this and if not, it’ll be us you can blame. But let us solve this.”
Rather than bringing in some kids and just putting it on them.
Gould doubled down on his criticism of the veteran group for their lack of mentorship and leadership on the field in the historic low the club has found itself in. This is their worst start to a season since the two clubs merged to make the Dragons in 1998.
“I just fear a little bit sometimes that they overreact… you put kids in it and it’s not their problem to solve.”
He referenced Manly’s recent performance, suggesting that it would be a harrowing experience if they had gone out and done that the next Friday night with a team full of kids making their debut or in their second or third game.
“It’s a harrowing experience. Put the old blokes out there and tell them to fix it. That’s their job. They’re the ones getting paid to do it. Go out and fix it.”
The Dragons will host the Manly Sea Eagles on Friday in Wollongong. Manly sacked coach Anthony Seibold after three straight losses to start the season, before stunning the Dolphins last week with Kieran Foran at the helm.
