{"id":35111,"date":"2021-02-15T11:26:36","date_gmt":"2021-02-15T12:26:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=35111"},"modified":"2021-02-15T13:02:14","modified_gmt":"2021-02-15T13:02:14","slug":"griffin-opens-up-on-dragons-hellish-off-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=35111","title":{"rendered":"Griffin opens up on Dragons' hellish off-season"},"content":{"rendered":"

Anthony Griffin's time at the Panthers ended in chaos<\/a> and life as a coach continued to haunt him when he returned from the wilderness to lead the Dragons before Christmas.<\/p>\n

The veteran mentor has endured a hellish off-season at St George Illawarra, which first turned ugly when playmaker Corey Norman was involved in a street fight in January<\/a>. Norman and former NRL star James Segeyaro have since claimed to be innocent.<\/p>\n

Drama again broke out when news surfaced of the club lodging an official submission to the NRL about signing controversial code-hopper Israel Folau<\/a>, despite his history of making homophobic slurs<\/a> on social media. That was followed by the Dragons' decision to abandon Folau<\/a> but only closing out their pursuit with a two-line statement, prompting a roasting from rugby league great Mark Geyer<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"Israel<\/p>\n

The blows continued to pound the club when inspirational skipper Cameron McInnes signed with arch-rivals Cronulla on a four-year deal from 2022<\/a>, before the fringe NSW Blues hooker was ruled out of the 2021 season with the rupture of his anterior cruciate ligament<\/a>.<\/p>\n

And the latest controversy concerned the signing of former Brisbane and Newcastle hooker Andrew McCullough<\/a>, which was questioned by Geyer and legendary code-hopper Wendell Sailor.<\/p>\n

\"Andrew<\/p>\n

Griffin addressed the avalanche of drama in an interview with WWOS Radio<\/em>.<\/p>\n

"The players are in great physical and mental condition. They're just busting to play as everyone is at this time of the year," Griffin said.<\/p>\n

"Our club's going well. We did a couple of things over the last few weeks that in the short term might seem unusual but in the long term were all about making our club better.<\/p>\n

"It's all going very well. Today was a good day to welcome Andrew to the club.<\/p>\n

"We're looking forward to getting our game going in a couple of weeks' time.<\/p>\n

"The big rehearsal is Souths in Mudgee next Saturday night, and then we've got two weeks to get prepared for Cronulla in Round One."<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The Dragons haven't played finals footy since 2018, having crashed to 15th on the ladder in 2019 and 12th in 2020.<\/p>\n

Their quest for redemption copped a crushing blow when McInnes suffered his season-ending injury at training last Friday, with which Griffin has empathised.<\/p>\n

"It was a terrible day on Friday for Cam," Griffin said.<\/p>\n

"I really feel for him, he's a lovely kid, he's done a lot for the club over the years and for him to go down in his last year like that – it was one of those real tragedies that you unfortunately come across in rugby league."<\/p>\n

The Dragons will get their 2021 campaign underway in a clash with the Sharks at Kogarah Oval on March 14.<\/p>\n

For a daily dose of the best of the breaking news and exclusive content from Wide World of Sports, subscribe to our newsletter by<\/strong><\/em> clicking here!<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Anthony Griffin's time at the Panthers ended in chaos and life as a coach continued to haunt him when he returned from the wilderness to […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35111"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=35111"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35111\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35113,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35111\/revisions\/35113"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=35111"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=35111"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=35111"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}