He’s the coach that sets the alarm for 4.45 am every morning and is still working 12-hour days a month after his side was eliminated the finals.

In fact when McGregor takes the Mercury’s call he’s hard at work throwing sledge-hammers on renovations to the club’s WIN Stadium training base.

‘‘I’ve got some mates from CBC Constructions helping us out,’’ McGregor said

‘‘When you’ve got mates helping out you can’t just leave them to it.’’

It’s a work ethic he’s relied on since being thrown headlong into the ruthless world of NRL coaching last year, inheriting a club as much as $500,000 over the salary cap despite a three-year finals absence.

It meant they couldn’t match the big dollars being thrown by rival clubs at local products and rep stars Brett Morris and Trent Merrin.

Other rookie coaches might have broken the bank to keep them but, almost 12 months on, McGregor stands by the decision. 

‘‘As a local product, I’ll never be comfortable losing local players,” McGregor said.

“I’m never comfortable with that and I never will be as a coach but you can’t make any decision a personal one because that’s not the right thing to do. I’ve got to do the right thing by the club.

‘‘I’ve got Pete [Mulholland] and Ben [Haran] who are employed full time in recruitment and I rely on them in regards to the salary cap and balancing the squad.

‘‘Of course I’m involved in the process but first an foremost I’m employed to coach and I prefer to do that.’’

On that score, a golden-point loss to the Bulldogs in week one of the finals marks McGregor’s first year as a success.

It capped a season in which the club won nine of their first 12 games before dropping seven straight when injuries and suspension bit hard. 

Which is a true indicator of their 2016 prospects remains to be seen but McGregor is confident his side has built a culture to take the club forward.

‘‘For me it was about getting an identity,’’ McGregor said.

‘‘Every good football team has an identity about them and they play a certain way and we wanted our identity to be built on the back of a good defensive line. We finished the fourth best defensive side after finishing 14th in 2014.

‘‘There was a four week block during the year where we had to play Canterbury, Souths the Roosters and the Broncos. We won of three of those four in a month and the lost the other one 16-10 to the Rabbitohs.

“Over the last three years prior to this one the Dragons had one won one of 20 against those three teams. They learned a lot about themselves in that month.”

McGregor said his side will take just as much out of the run of losses.

‘‘We used 30 players this year, which is the fourth most of any club,” he said.

“The other three finished well below us.

“We had a lot of guys putting themselves on the football field that weren’t 100 per cent fit.

“They showed a lot of courage to do that and that’s the big difference between the past and the present.

“They’re far more accountable to each other and there’s a belief there that hasn’t been there in previous years.’’