Dragons1015 suffered its worst ever start to a season losing their fifth straight in a 663-591 loss against the Tigers in round 5, the week after being hammered 860-350 by 2Great4U.

Coach Rose pointed to her side’s lack of players as a contributing factor to its horror show against the rookie NZ team, but it’s an excuse that won’t wash with everyone.

Dragons have played with just 10 of a possible 13 players in their last two games but some FCFL pundits are adamant the club only has itself to blame after mismanaging its roster and holding onto injured/suspended senior players.

But she arose from her covid enforced (password/email issues) to vow to put things right and get her Dragons back where they should be, entrenched in the top 8. Her prescence has been seen multiple times this week around Kogarah.

Playing against old rival Dazzlers Dingoes, she has insisted “the sleeping giant has awoken, you have been warned!”

Popular cable show FCFL 180 on Monday night mentioned, in this year alone the Dragons have held onto:

— English 2RF John Bateman (13 games) out for majority of 2020 with shoulder injury, may return for finals.

— FRF Matt Lodge (15 games) injured for 14 weeks with knee injury, only missed 2 games due to covid-19 enforced break.

— FLB Dylan Edwards (8 games) injured for 17 weeks with ankle syndesmosis, missing the first 5 rounds before making his long awaited return this week.

— HOK Cameron McInnes (19 games) MCL tear in his knee, missed 14 weeks and returned post covid.

“The fact is because they have invested so heavily in the Batemans and the Edwards and McInnes and Matt Lodge and all these great players with long term injuries, they have played short during the opening rounds hoping to make ground up later.” a source close to club said.

“It’s sheer luck that the covid crisis interrupted the competition or her blind loyalty could have crippled this club.

“Whose fault’s that? Rose let it play out. She’s collectively just let plenty experience with on the sidelines and she’s complaining they don’t have enough players on the park.

“The place is a confused mess.

“Unless they can get someone into the organisation that knows what a premiership list looks like, what a premiership environment looks like, then they are going to continue to dig a bigger and bigger hole.

“It shouldn’t happen that way but at the moment this list is out of balance.

“Until they get their list management to where it needs to be, the Dragons will continue to lose matches.”

Rose took charge of the Dragons in 2019 after the FCFL increased it’s teams from 4 to 8. But her move hasn’t gone to plan. Dragons scraped into the finals last year by fact all teams made the finals, and now questions are being asked after three awful performances to restart the season following the break caused by COVID-19.

“The big problem for the Dragons is this: Every time a little bit of flame gets put to the coach’s belly she won’t cop it, she makes an excuse,”

“She’s not handling the pressure at all.

“She came into this game on the weekend already armed with his excuse, so when everyone says, ‘How come you got flogged by the 2Great4U?’ (he says) ‘Look how many players played and look how much experience they have compared to us’.

“She did that last year a couple of times. She got under pressure, she basically threw off, ‘Not me, the problem’s over there’.”