There's a recurring narrative surrounding St George Illawarra coach Shane Flanagan and it's so destructive that it could make his job untenable, if it isn't already.
As the under-fire Dragons boss fights to save his position, his coaching methods have been called into question this week and it's not for the first time.
With the side languished on the bottom of the ladder, young prop Loko Pasifiki Tonga is pushing for a way out of the club, despite being signed until the end of 2027. It has thrown fresh fuel on a fire that was already burning out of control.
READ MORE: 'Nobody wanted him': Poetic NRL return 1420 days in the making
READ MORE: Maroons bolter emerges as Slater mulls over big selection
READ MORE: Dragons rejected as several clubs race to sign star No.1
The 20-year-old is one of the most highly-touted young forwards in the game, having dominated age-group football and representing NSW U19s and Australian Schoolboys.
Pasifiki Tonga played 10 first grade games last season under Flanagan, but is yet to get on the field this year in the top grade for St George Illawarra.
Last weekend, Pasifiki Tonga was at his powerful best in NSW Cup, running for more than 250 metres and scoring a try as the Dragons smashed the Sea Eagles.
But when the NRL team list was named on Tuesday afternoon, his name was again quite far down the pecking order and out of the 19-man side.
Watch the 2026 NRL season live and free on Nine and 9Now.
Hours later, dual international turned player agent Mat Rogers – who has Pasifiki Tonga signed to his stable, although he doesn't directly manage the Dragons tearaway – made some damning claims about why the 196cm front-rower wants out of the club.
"They've obviously got an opinion of him that, he's not up to scratch. He doesn't feel like he's being developed and I guess we agree," Rogers said on SEN.
"He doesn't know what to do. That's the problem. There's a very frustrated young man there who's busting his butt and he's playing the house down.
"He thinks he deserves an opportunity. It's not sour grapes, but he just feels like he's not being told what to do."
The Sydney Morning Herald has since published the back-and-forth between Pasifiki Tonga's manager Craig Clifton and the club's chief operating officer Ben Creagh.
Clifton described the situation as "untenable" and said his client had become 'confused and demoralised' due to being left out of the NRL – especially when Flanagan publicly stated after the Dragons' round six loss that he lacked options to bring into the team.
"If I had someone that was better out of the side, I would put them in, trust me," he said.
Wide World of Sports contacted St George Illawarra for comment on the situation.
The club rejects claims made by Pasifiki Tonga's camp and are adamant he knows what he needs to do in order to return to the NRL, while shutting down a potential release.
It comes just days after the Dragons confirmed star back-rower Jaydn Su'A would be leaving at the end of this season, despite being one of the side's best players.
Su'A had an option in his favour for 2027 but is expected to join Parramatta.
The comments from both Rogers and Clifton however echo similar sentiments from Lachlan Ilias, who joined the Red V last year but was dropped early in the season and never returned, despite helping steer the NSW Cup team towards a grand final berth.
Ilias claimed he barely received feedback from Flanagan once he was axed.
"I don't think I was given a fair opportunity to get back into the team after I was dropped," the now-Titans playmaker told the Unscripted podcast last November.
"The only dialogue that I got after I got dropped was after we won 10 or 11 games in a row for Cup and then we played terrible against Newtown … it just wasn't our day and that was the only time I got feedback about my game, saying that I played poorly.
"I was doing everything I could, I don't know if I could have done any more to get back into the team. It was a different time, because the boys in NRL weren't playing great but we were playing well, so the vibe was high in the Cup team.
"We were building these connections in Cup, putting our best foot forward … I don't think myself or other boys in the Cup team were given a fair opportunity to get back into NRL.
"I'm not trying to talk shit about anything else, but I just think there were a few things that went wrong and I feel like the best team wasn't picked week-in and week-out.
"[I am] a little bit bitter that I didn't get a fair crack. I don't think I had a fair opportunity to get back into the side. I did everything to put myself back into the team."
In fairness to Flanagan, there are some younger players who have improved under his coaching at the Dragons – most notably the Couchman twins and Hamish Stewart – while the team more than competed in a lot of games throughout 2024 and 2025.
But as a further counterpoint, it's not just the current players Flanagan has coached that have raised queries about or had issues with him.
Ben Hunt forced his way out of St George Illawarra after just one year under Flanagan, with the issue between the pair coming to the surface again recently when the coach name-dropped the Broncos veteran in a press conference as part of the reason why the club's squad wasn't at the level it needed to be to compete for finals.
"If you look back 12 or 18 months ago, our marquee halfback [Ben Hunt] walked out on the club," Flanagan told media last week.
"When your halfback walks out with no future plan, it's hard to all of a sudden say 'he's gone, what's next' and most clubs will have a three or four-year plan."
Hunt responded in the SMH, saying: "I thought I was too old and had bad habits."
James Maloney, who starred in Cronulla's 2016 grand final victory with Flanagan at the helm, told a room full of people last year the coach had significant shortcomings.
"I didn't learn a thing off him," Maloney said, as reported at the time by The Sydney Morning Herald.
WWOS reached out to Maloney regarding the comments made last year at the Magic Round function, but he opted not to speak about Flanagan's current situation.
While the brutal comments from Maloney last year and the passive-aggressive reaction from Hunt aren't a great reflection, Flanagan does have a good relationship with plenty of ex-players from his time at the Sharks, most notably former captain Paul Gallen.
The pair remain good mates, but Gallen declined to comment when contacted by WWOS about the current situation at the Dragons and pressure on the coach.
Flanagan is proven at NRL level and has a title to his name - more than a lot of current coaches can say – but time is running out for him to turn it around at the Dragons and the narrative surrounding his coaching methods and ability won't help matters.
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.