HOOPS: Staggering details in Ryles‘ $3.2m rejection of ‘basket case’ Dragons revealed
The once-mighty St George Illawarra Dragons are now officially the NRL’s biggest basket case after retired NSW and Australian forward Jason Ryles knocked back a $3.2 million four-year deal to take over at the Red V.
Yep, your eyes aren’t playing tricks, the Dragons offered the untested NRL coach $800,000-a-season yet club management still couldn’t convince the ex-front rower who played for St George Illawarra and lives in Wollongong to take the job.
On Monday night the Ryles move to St George Illawarra was all but a done deal barring any last-minute U-turns at the negotiating table.
This is how bad it is.
Dragons chairman Andrew Lancaster was interviewed on Wollongong radio shortly after 9am Wednesday morning.
At this stage, the Red V still thought they had their man.
When the radio hosts asked Lancaster about the impending Ryles appointment, the Dragons chairman responded by saying it should all be squared away and announced within the next 48 hours.
Talk about blindsided. By 10am St George Illawarra had received the phone call saying the sky had fallen in and Ryles was pulling out of negotiations.
Ryles instead accepted a job with the Melbourne Storm to work in pathways and development with a view to being in the box seat to take over from Craig Bellamy whenever the supercoach decides to hang up the gloves.
It’s impossible to sugar coat it - the development is an out and out sledgehammer blow to the management who’ve got control of the steering wheel at St George Illawarra.
What kind of club sacks a coach who in reality should never have been given a 12-month extension at the beginning of 2022 in Anthony Griffin without having another coach already lined up to replace him?
It simply doesn’t happen at the strong clubs like Penrith, Melbourne, Sydney Roosters, South Sydney, Brisbane, Cronulla or Canterbury-Bankstown.
To make matters worse the Red V push all-in on a rookie coach who’s never actually independently been in charge of a team, offer him $800,000-a-season by four years - then still miss the target.
Ryles has been busily hitting the phones canvassing the opinions of some of the most influential figures in the NRL about whether he should take on the Dragons job.
Other NRL coaches, other club bosses.
On Monday night, the view was the deal was all but done.
To the point where he also had his great mate who’s currently working at the Bulldogs and played at the Dragons and Roosters Shane Millard lined-up to come and work alongside him.
The Dragons simply couldn’t close the deal.
Equally as concerning, Ryles lives in Wollongong where the Dragons are based.
So the shot callers at St George Illawarra have been unable to convince a bloke who’s played for the club, lives where the team is based and is out of a job as the Roosters assistant coach to take on the role.
The Roosters have terminated Ryles form the club’s payroll today.
Surely common sense now prevails and St George Illawarra just go and get a proven winner like Shane Flanagan to come in and fix the mess.
Sure Flanno’s got some negative marks on his CV but he’s served his time out of the game and when you strip it all back professional sport is all about winning.
Say what you like about his history, Flanagan could turn St George Illawarra around in 12 months.
There’s currently three premiership-winners out of work in the NRL in Flanagan, Des Hasler and Michael Maguire.
None of them could even make the shortlist at St George Illawarra.
Let’s not forget, the Dragons also failed to convince Craig Fitzgibbon to join the club prior to Fitzy signing at Cronulla where he’s made an immediate impact and turned the Sharks into a fair dinkum outfit.
