RUGBY LEAGUE
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The season is barely three weeks old but Saturday's road trip to Canberra is already shaping as crunch time for the Dragons after disgruntled fans launched an online campaign criticising their beloved club this week.
The famous 'Oust Doust' banner - aimed at chief executive Peter Doust - has been a fixture at Dragons games in recent seasons but it will be accompanied in Canberra this week by a new banner reading: #SaveOurSaints after the hashtag took Twitter by storm when launched on Wednesday night.
Thousands of fans took to social media to vent their frustrations regarding the club's decision to take games away from the club's traditional homes of Kogarah and Wollongong, the failure to retain Origin stars and Illawarra juniors Brett Morris and Trent Merrin, and perceived poor management that's seen the club seek financial assistance from the NRL.
While most of the vitriol has targeted Doust and the board, coach Paul McGregor has faced scrutiny after his side's 0-2 start to the season. McGregor is aware of the criticism but insisted his side can turn around their poor start.
"I haven't got enough hours in the day, certainly not this week, to look at a newspaper or watch too much TV but I understand everyone's frustration," McGregor said.
"I'd just ask them to be patient and to know I understand their disappointment. I live it every day at the moment. There's no person hurting more than me and the team and we're doing everything to fix that. With a short turnaround it's very hard to work on a lot of things on the football field but we certainly had a good, hard look at it in the video room and adjusted to make sure we leave nothing to chance this week."
Asked how the players responded to the video of their 22-4 loss to the Tigers last week McGregor said: "Obviously [they were] disappointed. They know they can be better than that and they understand their roles within the team. They certainly took ownership of their performance which is great and you need to do that when you play poorly and don't perform to your standard.
"We're looking forward to getting down to Canberra, we went down there last year and had some joy and we're going down there with the right attitude."
The Dragons will be boosted by the likely return of star fullback Josh Dugan, who trained with the side on Friday and will face his former club provided he doesn't pull up sore on Saturday morning.
"He had a light run yesterday and he's had another one today," McGregor said.
"We'll see how he pulls up in the morning but it's really exciting for the group for him to play."