Rugby League: Dragons in need of fire after losing Mundine

By PETER JESSUP

Dragons skipper Craig Smith was off to training early yesterday even though he will not be running out on to the Wollongong Stadium paddock against the Auckland Warriors in their NRL match today.

"I want to get down there and run around like a lunatic and hope that the boys can pick up some of my energy," he said, lamenting his four-week suspension.

The tough prop's concern is that the players' minds are not on the job of beating Auckland, that they are distracted by the Anthony Mundine saga.

Smith described the wayward standoff's announcement this week that he was retiring from league as a relief to his team-mates.

"Hopefully we can now put this to death. The team's going through a form slump and the only way to play our way out of it is to get our minds on the job," he said.

The media scrum has been five to six times the size of the Dragons' squad at every training session this week, with reporters keen to gauge the impact on the Dragons of their star's desertion.

"Blokes do read the papers and watch the news and it would have affected some of them last week for sure," Smith said of their 4-50 hiding at the hands of the Cowboys.

And that controversy followed weeks of reporting about a feud between lock Wayne Bartrim and second-rower Darren Treacey, which prompted hooker Nathan Brown to ask for the issue to be left alone because of the damage being down to Bartrim's wife and three children.

It has been an odd season for 28-year-old Smith. He missed the Dragons' thrashing in Melbourne through suspension, came back to the side after the 52-0 Anzac test and told his team: "Now I know what it feels like."

And he had only two more weeks to wait for another hiding, this time in Townsville in the Dragons' colours.

"It's not something you enjoy. You want it to end but it just goes on and on and it feels like there's nothing you can do to stop it," he said.

Smith feels hard done-by - "two jokers were ironed out in Townsville and no action was taken in either case."

He reckons worse tackles than his go by unchecked every weekend, that his history of judicial appearances makes him an easy mark, and does not agree with the pre-determined sentencing of the NRL.

"They're trying to make me change my [tackling] style. That goes against what every one of my coaches wants me to do, but I'm going to have to change from a ball-and-all tackler to a legs tackler."

Both sides at Wollongong will be without significant players. Sidelined with Smith are lock Wayne Bartrim, suspended for two weeks for a high tackle in the Cowboys game, and Lance Thompson, who has had a knee operation.

Centres Shaun Timmins and Jamie Ainscough are away on New South Wales Origin duty, the latter being called in yesterday after Eric Groethe failed a fitness test on his knee.

The Warriors were to make some decisions on players overnight after a late training run in Wollongong, but the injury list remains long and will affect the run-on side, with the final 17 to be revealed just before the start of the match.

Skipper John Simon flew to his home town this week to leave palm prints in a walkway dedicated to sons of Wollongong who have played for Australia, but is an unlikely starter. His likely replacement is Ben Lythe.

Terry Hermansson will take over the captaincy, with more talk needed on the field than there was last week.

There was concern over whether Awen Guttenbeil and Henry Faafili had recovered sufficiently from knee strains suffered against the Tigers last week.

With Scott Pethybridge out (shoulder), Lee Oudenryn goes to fullback but will not last there if the Dragons adopt - and he does not handle - what seems the obvious approach of peppering him with bombs.

For that reason Joe Galuvao is a likely bench replacement to cover centre, wing and fullback.

The Warriors will attack down the left wing against junior Amos Roberts and around the ruck to push Luke Branighan, who was at standoff last week but swaps Mundine's old jersey with that of Trent Barrett.

There will be a remarkable similarity between the two teams when they run out on the green strip that separates the dirty steel town from the beautiful white sand surf beaches of the South Coast.

Both teams have been playing without confidence, without consistency. Both are coming off the back of horror shows. Both are sitting just outside the top eight. And both captains will sit frustrated on the sideline, their input confined to pre-game and halftime gee-ups.

Smith said: "A lot of people have been putting the boot into St George Illawarra, saying that the merger's not working, that we're soft, that we're gone this season, that the Treacey/Bartrim thing and now the Mundine saga is ripping us apart.

"My job is to stay positive, stay focused on the job and help the blokes do the same. It's a tough situation. I've got no doubt we're tough enough and good enough to get through it."

Dragons: Luke Patten, Nathan Blacklock, Jamie Ainscough, Mark Gasnier, Amos Roberts, Trent Barrett, Luke Branighan, Luke Bailey, Nathan Brown (c), Chris Leikvoll, Darren Treacy, Andrew Hart, Terry Lamey; interchange Matt Cooper, Corey Pearson, Robbie Simpson, James Hooper.

Warriors (likely): Lee Oudenryn, Odell Manuel, Shontayne Hape, Nigel Vagana, Henry Faafili, Ben Lythe, Stacey Jones, Terry Hermansson, Robert Mears, Joe Vagana, Matt Spence, Logan Swann, Jason Death; interchange Joe Galuvao, Awen Guttenbeil, Monty Betham, Jerry Seuseu.