Dragons RFC - new name, new season: 2022/23

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New name, bit of a rebrand…..but same old Dragons? Hopefully not!

Player movements:

Players In:

Bradley Roberts from Ireland Ulster
JJ Hanrahan from France Clermont
Rhodri Jones from Wales Ospreys
Sean Lonsdale from England Exeter Chiefs
Max Clark from England Bath
George Nott from England London Irish
Sio Tomkinson from New Zealand Highlanders
Angus O'Brien from Wales Scarlets
Lewis Jones from Wales Cardiff
Rob Evans from Wales Scarlets


Players Out:

Taylor Davies returned to Wales Scarlets
Dan Babos released
Mesake Doge released
Tom Griffiths released
Jordan Olowofela returned to England Leicester Tigers
Max Williams released
Josh Lewis to Wales Merthyr
Jonah Holmes to England Ealing Trailfinders
Dan Baker to Wales Aberavon
Owen Jenkins to Wales Wales Sevens
Will Talbot-Davies to England Coventry
Greg Bateman retired
Joe Maksymiw to France Agen
Evan Lloyd to Wales Ebbw Vale
Carrick McDonough to Wales Ebbw Vale
Adam Warren to Wales Llandovery
Harry Fry to England Hartpury University

Some decent signings there, on paper. And lots of players leaving who were not that good. But also losing a couple of decent ones in Doge and Holmes.

Fingers crossed for a few more wins this season

Buttress gone as chairman too. But still on the board and part owner. He was a good one. Local guy and passionate about rugby in the area (trying not to say the ‘R’ word as it gets people acting crazy!). He made good on his promise to get the Dragons back into private ownership. Can’t have been easy. I liked him and thought he was good for us. Will be missed.

Will be interesting to see what the new CEO and chairman bring to the club.

Can't fault him, now we are back in private ownership. I was sceptical at times, as to whether he would do it.

Did feel like he was taking a lot on, with his new stuff too. So something had to give.

Dai will probably just sign 4 players like he talked about, we know two already as I have no doubt Hollis is impressive in training. I guess Funaki is more of a replacement for Moriarty though, with Griffiths always injured and unable to plug that gap. All the other signings need to be decent front 5 players, and apparently Lions are looking to offload 3 of their prop forwards. Not much faith in Dai’s recruitment though.

Just hope what happended to Sio doesn't happen with him. Comes with a good reputation, starts well..........but then fades to nothing due to poor coaching/poor structures/constant losses/lack of talent around him/homesickness/weather...... or one of the many other variables that must affect a player coming to Wales and the perennial worst team.

God, I'm depressing myself just reading that back!

The two incoming centre's don't seem to be struggling with injury, I believe Sio had struggled prior to joining but he had good pedigree. Wilson has a similar pedigree. It doesn't really matter who is at back-row and in the backs if we're still relying on people like Coleman and Davies - I am still unconvinced of Dai being aware of this.

Filo Tiatia then!

Was rumoured previously, good to actually have a defence coach as it's a step up on not having one. I'm still not entirely sold on what Dai is doing, it depends who is coming in next.

Incoming: Hollis (now as opposed to next season), Wilson, Funaki, Cummins, Lewis-Hughes. It was also rumoured that we would be having another one of Dai's mates, Wyn Jones, I have mixed feelings on that one.

I'm sure we have a few leaving but not sure who.

So the rumour was true then.

I think this guy could be decent for us. He fully immersed himself at the Os and had a talismanic effect. I do think he could do similar for us, as players will buy into him, in my opinion.

Ed Byrne to Cardiff from Leinster. Good player, not sure if he’s been struggling with injury though - hence we haven’t seen much of him. They’ll sign Ruddock next I bet.

* I posted this on the wrong thread.

RiscaGame wrote:So the rumour was true then.

I think this guy could be decent for us. He fully immersed himself at the Os and had a talismanic effect. I do think he could do similar for us, as players will buy into him, in my opinion.

You wouldn't not buy into him, would you, he's pretty formidable!

My only slight concern is that he hasn't been a dedicated defence coach anywhere, as far as I can see, but I'm reliably informed that's not necessarily a problem...

I think it’s great that Filo is coming here, but then my dour pessimistic Welsh traits kick in and I just assume he’s getting some experience on the way to better things. Still, if so then great that he’s with us for some time if he can live up to expectations. On paper it looks an awesome appointment (although with no defence coach currently, any appointment looks good )

Gonzalo Bertranou, Lewis Jones, Aki Seiuli, Sean Lonsdale, Sio Tomkinson, Max Clark, Corey Baldwin and Nathan Evans are leaving at the end of the season. I suspect Lydiate will retire, perhaps Leon Brown will too. Roberts could be off elsewhere, potentially back to SA after being snubbed. Worryingly that Griffiths, Coleman and Davies aren't mentioned.

What's the deal with Brown's injury? He was a regular around the Wales squad and should be in his prime years.

Lonsdale I presume is off because there's been no international recognition coming his way, ditto Max Clark.

Corey Baldwin is an odd one, some hype out of age grade then failed to kick on at Chiefs, Scarlets and now Dragons.

formerly known as Sam wrote:What's the deal with Brown's injury? He was a regular around the Wales squad and should be in his prime years.

Lonsdale I presume is off because there's been no international recognition coming his way, ditto Max Clark.

Corey Baldwin is an odd one, some hype out of age grade then failed to kick on at Chiefs, Scarlets and now Dragons.

Brown is just always injured, had he not been he could be a very good player by now. We need him to go really.

Lonsdale is someone I would have liked us to keep, given he can play across the back-row. Clark was somewhat snubbed by Dai as was Sio to an extent, the former could have done more but his opportunities were also limited - I rate both as having a higher ceiling that Steff Hughes. Clark will probably stay with Cardiff.

Baldwin is meh.

Just seen this graphic of all the Scarlets players leaving. Which of these do you reckon will end up at the Dragons? It’s inevitable we’ll get a few. Probably way past their sell by date and will do very little to nothing for us!

I’ve said it before, but if they’re not good enough for the Scarlets any more then they shouldn’t be good enough for us. Rarely, very rarely, you might get a very good player who has fallen out of favour and they might be looking to jump ship. But usually these players are not offered new contracts because they’re over the hill or have completely gone off the boil and they never seem to regain any form when they join us.

So would you have any of these at the Dragons for next season?

P.s. obviously some have signed for other teams so we can’t sign them ourselves. But some will be available and perhaps looking for one last hurrah.

It has been rumoured we are signing Wyn Jones.

Given Dai likes to sign ex Turks, I would expect a couple. Baldwin was an unnecessary signing for me, especially as Flanagan knew what he was getting.

Of our leavers, I liked Sio when he was fit. I had a lot of time for Lonsdale and I actually liked Clark when he did get a shot. Bertranou was good too overall, but I am hoping Hope gets more opportunities and there was never going to be a place for Gonzo once Blacker was signed.

I think Conbeer needs a contract somewhere, good player.

Yeah looking at the list of leavers at the Scarlets, my worry is we are going to sign them. Conbeer wouldnt be the worst signing in the world but in all honesty we need forwards. Wyn Jones isnt the player he was so it would be silly to get him now. We do need props but ones that have a good track record at league level and will clock the minutes in the season.

In all honesty I would prefer us to get some reliable non welsh props, at least until we can bring some through our own academy. Welsh Props are gash at the moment and the good ones are going to the Premiership.

Sio was the only player i wish we would have kept as he wasnt actually that bad. We still have a load of guys I wouldnt be keeping at the region retained like Benjamin and Jordan Williams. Jordan does have skills and he might have been a good running 10 had they moved him there earlier in his career. The issue is he is a turnstyle in defence and you cant have that as a 15 in the modern game.

AOB wasn’t in for long, but I was thinking how much better he was than Reed during that time. Reed isn’t cut out for this level. Our reserve front row got pumped at the scrum too, that was a bit of a surprise.

Arhip wasnt the best scrummaging prop when he was in his prime and that was before the SA teams joined. Martinez for such a big man and as a argentine prop you would expect the set piece to be very good. Both of those guys I dont think are good enough.

What last nights match showed was that Rhodri and Coleman didn't do to badly in the opening 50 at scrum time. Granted Coleman I'm still on the fence on. But what we do know is you do need 4 good props at this level. So given I'm not sure about Coleman we would need at least 2 tightheads and a loosehead to get anywhere near being a good side.

If Dai doesnt sort the pack out we will never know which of our backline players can cut it at this level. Reed at 22 is still young so I would probably give him another season before judging him at that level. But after next year if he doesn't perform I would probably be moving him on.

But I do hope Dai eventually realizes that the following should be moved on:-

Ashton Hewitt, Jordan Williams (the human turnstyle), Steff Hughes, Lydiate, Screech, Joe Davies, Arhip, Brown, Fairbrother, Benjamin, Reynolds, Martinez. Thats just the bare minimum.

Granted some of those recently signed new contracts so unlikely but that's at least 12 guys I would have moved on and probably a couple of more on top of that if I had my way.

The sad thing is if we could only sort some key positions out we could actually be a very good side. There are some excellent players in our team.

You can’t really blame the forwards if your fly-half is always missing kicks, dropping the ball and not making an effort to tackle. He wasn’t good at U20s either and that’s usually a good indicator.

Yeah I dont think Reed will be the next messiah or anything but he is still young....if there was another young 10 on the horizon I would probably go that way but we dont have much kicking around in that position in wales at the moment.

My only point is we need to sort our set piece out, lineout and scrum at this level have to be solid. And at the moment we are not there. We need to at least be able to physically match teams in the pack because if we can do that we will win more games than we did this year.

On top of that we dont really have much carrying power.

I'll reserve judgement for now until I see what Dai does with the last of his recruitment over the summer.

He’s not even in between, he just isn’t good enough for this level. You can’t use the age excuse, you’re either good enough for pro rugby or you aren’t. Funny how many other 20 year olds elsewhere are making the step-up, yet in Wales we tend to persist with crap players and hope they come good.

Your probably right on Reed but I'd rather us persist with someone like him than say sign someone like Dan Evans.  Given Dai's connection with the Scarlets I really hope were not in for another off season were we are picking up Scarlets players who dont cut it.....Id rather us go overseas if we have to.  

Wilson is a quality signing for us, Funaki could be good potentially but the other 2 are not great pickups.  So at this point Dai is 50/50 in the transfer market.  If he doesnt do a good job in the market in the summer it wont matter if Reed is or isnt up to it at this level.

We already signed Dan Evans. I hope we aren’t signing Dan Jones either, it’s rumoured that it’s Wyn Jones coming over, but as you say we probably need another two on each side before we start to compete. You’ll also note that Lonsdale was good again last night, bizarre to see him on his way imo. I also think Ospreys or Scarlets should pick up Sio, good player if fit and they need some depth there - we do too but he’s already leaving.

My bad I meant Dan Jones

Speaking of crap players how long will it take for someone at the Dragons to realize we cant play Jordan Williams at 15. He cant defend and that is not a quality a modern 15 can have these days.

Wouldn't be the worst thing if Jordan Williams moved on, he hardly plays for us anyway. His defence is probably better than Reed's though. I still think it would be good to trial Dyer at full-back.

I see Oli Burrows is incoming, which probably means Bradley Roberts is off - he deserved more recognition but never got it. I'd prefer if he stayed and Benjamin was sent away, unlikely though.

The irony is Jordan might have made a good running 10 had they identified him there early enough in his career. They didn't and I always questioned if he had the top end gas at 15 for that position. Granted his tackling at 10 would have still been an issue but at 15 your last man usually needs to put down some big wingers and its an area he never really improved in over his career. I'm guessing he's on good money as well.

Burrows is a weird signing. Would have made sense if we were getting rid of a couple of hookers. I don't think its a position we needed but he was probably cheap. Maybe you are right and Roberts is off. Benjamin should also be cut loose.

I thought Dai said he is bringing 7 signings in. We're already up to 5. That's a problem because for me he needed to get at least 3 props in this summer. I just hope the next 2 signings are props if 7 is all we are signing.