Not for the first time this season, the Dragons were without their two biggest stars Josh Dugan and Benji Marshall in their dismal 32-12 loss to the Titans on Friday night. 

Mose Masoe and Ben Creagh, who hasn’t played since round three, are at best outside chances of returning this season while the likes of Jack de Belin and Joel Thompson have missed chunks of the season through injury and suspension. 

It’s forced the club to use 27 players so far this season and McGregor said, following his side’s loss to the Titans, that salary cap pressures limit his options.

“You always talk about [making changes] but it’s very hard when you’ve got a salary cap and second-tier cap as well,” McGregor said.

“We’ve already used 27 players so it’s very hard to change it around too much. A lot of things come into play there so we’ll just have to sit back and have look at it. 

“To say I’m happy with what happened [against Gold Coast], I’m not, but I’m guided a little bit by player depth and who’s available. I think everyone is at this time.

“Benny Creagh’s been out since round three, Mose Masoe hasn’t played this year and they’re both under the cap still. Now Duges is out for a month and he was out for three weeks prior that so we’ve been using other people to replace them all year. 

“It’s very hard now to look outside, we’ve got to look from within and start challenging each other and the players need to do that as well because [our last two games] are not acceptable.”

The Titans loss followed a similarly poor 36-6 defeat to Manly two weeks ago and leaves the Dragons facing an uphill climb to finish in the top eight. 

They’ll take on a resurgent Wests Tigers at ANZ Stadium on Sunday ahead of clashes with Canterbury, Brisbane and Cronulla in a month that will make or break their top-eight hopes.