Paul McGregor admits he is already second-guessing his decision to move Josh Dugan to the centres, but the St George Illawarra coach may not have the option of shifting the NSW State of Origin star back to fullback against South Sydney next Sunday due to concern about a hamstring injury.
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Sharks maul messy Dragons
Cronulla have made light work of St George Illawarra, condemning the Dragons to their second straight loss.
Six days after nearly pulling off an upset over the Storm in Melbourne the Dragons, with a mistake-athon, looked a shadow of that side before 17,946 spectators at Southern Cross Group Stadium.Â
While the Paul Gallen-less Sharks began a new era at the game's most constantly renamed venue with their first win of the season, the Dragons were dreadful and will sweat on news of Dugan's injury, particularly given the sorry afternoon endured by their fullback Kurt Mann.
From the moment the 23-year-old fumbled a long Chad Townsend kick into his own corner post it was a day to forget.
Dugan, a converted centre, would be the obvious candidate to go to the back if McGregor rings the changes, but he must be in doubt for their round-three encounter against a rampaging Souths after leaving up the tunnel with 25 minutes left on Sunday.
McGregor said Dugan would have a scan on the hamstring on Monday and would "possibly miss a week". "They're talking grade one," he said. "It's not too bad."
The coach conceded he would have to revisit the Dugan move when he was fit again in an effort to have his strike weapon as involved as possible.
"We put a lot of work into it, to be honest with you, in the pre-season, and it's only two games into the competition," McGregor said of Dugan's switch to centre.
"He averaged 160 metres last year and we're certainly not getting that out of our back three at the moment so we've got to look at that. Also, I've also said that Josh is one of the best defensive if not the best defensive fullback in the game. So I'll have to have a look at it."
The positioning of Dugan had little impact, in reality, on the outcome on Sunday. From Mann to halves Benji Marshall and Gareth Widdop to an error-prone Russell Packer, they were poor across the park.
"There is no excuses for today's performance. It's certainly not up to the standard we set ourselves,"Â Widdop said. "Our completion rate was terrible."Â
There had been brightness early on for the Dragons when Marshall sliced through a gap as if it was 2006, not 2016.
It was one of a couple of turn-back-the-clock moments in the first half, the second coming when Ben Barba raced through soon afterwards to score the first try of the match.
The Dragons were left to rue a failure to strike during the 10 minutes that Cronulla winger Sosaia Feki was in the sin-bin, marched for holding down Jason Nightingale who had sprinted clear after the aforementioned Marshall run. Â
Shane Flanagan's team pounced, with the Sharks scoring three tries in a pivotal six minutes to close the half.
At the centre of most of it was halfback Townsend, who posted an individual try himself right on the break and found an opportunistic Valentine Holmes on the right wing with a nicely weighted kick. Involved in some unwanted commotion at the Coogee Pavilion a week earlier, there was a much friendlier reaction from a raucous Sharks faithful as Holmes ran around to improve the position.
Cronulla didn't reach any great heights but from there didn't need to.
"They didn't throw a lot at us, and they dropped a lot of ball," Flanagan said. "But we can only defend what they threw at us. And they didn't look like scoring a try."
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