Dragons coach facing early NRL acid test

Rookie St George Illawarra coach Steve Price faces an early test of his NRL coaching credentials as the Dragons attempt to regroup from their worst display in years.

It was a throwback to the pre-Wayne Bennett era, the Dragons showing a complete lack of discipline and competitiveness in being thumped 30-4 by Canterbury on Saturday night.

And now the man charged with succeeding the super coach has been left to find a remedy, with the senior playing group at a loss to explain how it all went so wrong against the Bulldogs.

“It’s unacceptable for the standards we have set the last few years, we’ll be doing all we can to turn it around during the week,” Young said.

“We had done it (played disciplined football) over the pre-season but it’s about putting it into game – we did last week but we didn’t this week.”

The problem for Price is that last week’s performance may have been another inspired by Bennett, with the Dragons beating the Bennett-coached Newcastle in their first game since the departure of the master coach.

There are also question marks over Price’s decision to leave Beau Scott on the field until halftime with the centre hobbling through much of the period with a badly corked quad muscle.

Bulldogs centre Josh Morris scored three first-half tries down the edge Scott was defending, but hardly made a dent in the second half when Scott had been replaced.

“It was only a cork – you try and push through a cork and the longer it went on the worse it got – he couldn’t run,” Price said.

Not helping the Dragons to turn it around is the fact that on Friday they face a Wests Tigers outfit bound to be still smarting from their round two loss to Manly.

Price will be sweating on the match review committee’s findings after props Michael Weyman and Leeson Ah Mau were both placed on report for high tackles – a situation compounded by the fact frontrower Dan Hunt remains another week away at least from returning from a knee injury.

Young was hoping the short turnaround world work in his side’s favour.

“We’ve got a short turnaround which could be a good thing,” Young said.

“After you get a bit embarrassed it’s good that the game’s not too far away so we can try and redeem ourselves.”

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