St George Illawarra coach Steve Price has given little indication as to whether Jamie Soward will see out the NRL season with the joint-venture.
Soward will link up with Penrith at the end of the season after signing a four-year deal earlier this year but was dumped to NSW Cup last week by Price, leading to speculation he would finish the year in the UK Super League.
Soward had the ignominy of playing for the Illawarra Cutters in the curtain-raiser to last week’s win over Newcastle and was overlooked once again for the Dragons’ defeat by North Queensland on Friday in Wollongong.
Price informed his players of the reasons for leaving Soward out of the team earlier this week, but when pressed on his future after the 22-16 loss to the Cowboys at WIN Stadium he was less forthcoming.
“He’s playing with the Cutters and he will be playing with the Cutters until further notice,” Price said.
The decision to drop Soward came after the former NSW five-eighth missed a last-second penalty that would have tied the game against Canterbury in round 12.
Des Hasler’s side held on to win that game 16-14 and Price was equally non-committal when asked if the door was still open for a return to first grade.
“It always is. He’s playing with the Cutters, so we’ll see how he performs,” he said.
The loss to North Queensland dropped the Dragons to 13th on the ladder and leaves Price in danger of becoming the first coach in the joint-venture’s history to miss the finals for two successive years.
The Cowboys went into the game on the back of five successive defeats and held out seven successive sets from the hosts in the final 12 minutes to chalk up a much-needed win.
Price said he was bitterly disappointed by the performance after an impressive win over the Knights last Saturday.
“After a great performance last week, and it’s been a great week at training, and I was really confident of putting in a good performance,” he said.
“We need to re-evaluate as a coaching group, as players and individuals and we all need to take responsibility for it.
“The boys have got a couple of days off to freshen up and we need to have a hard look at ourselves.”
One highlight for the Dragons was another top-class performance from Josh Dugan who put his hands up for a State of Origin recall.
NSW coach Laurie Daley names his squad on Sunday and Price said the former Canberra fullback’s form is good enough for selection should Jarryd Hayne fail to recover from a hamstring injury.
