LEAVE the baggage at the dressing room door. That’s the message from Dragons coach Paul McGregor to his players as they look to get their finals tilt back on track against Canterbury at ANZ Stadium on Friday night.
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The club has been under fire from several fronts this week with McGregor, chief executive Peter Doust and star halves Benji Marshall and Gareth Widdop all feeling the heat.
A run of three straight losses was also compounded this week by police charges leveled at Tim Lafai and Siliva Havili following a drunken night out in Wollongong that’s seen the criticism reach a crescendo ahead of the Bulldogs clash.
McGregor admitted following last Sunday’s 25-12 loss to the Tigers that the external pressure was starting to weigh on the Dragons but said his side need to block it out to be any chance of knocking off the Bulldogs.
“It has been a tough couple of weeks. We've lost a few games in a row and unfortunately that requires criticism,” McGregor said.
“That’s rugby league, it’s the game we all love or love to hate at different stages. For me it’s all about working hard and getting the playing group to work towards a victory.
“You can’t worry about other people think or concern yourself with what other people think because it just takes away your focus from what you can control and that’s winning games of footy.
“It’s the same for the players. For some unknown reason [people] seem to enjoy targeting some clubs more than others, some players more than others and some coaches more than others but you can’t do much about that.
“Unfortunately players do look into [those] things but for us it’s about looking after what we can control as a group and that the players leave the baggage at the door and worry about what they can control which is going out there and playing good footy.
“We’re still in the hunt for the semi-finals, people have shot memories, we’ve got to win four our next six and we understand that and this week’s the start of that.”
The Dragons performance against the Tigers was an improvement on two previous poor showings against the Sea Eagles and the Titans but McGregor said his side will need to go up a level on Friday.
“There were statistically a lot of good things to come out of the game. Obviously winning’s important to but in the process of winning we took a few steps forward against the Tigers we’ve just got to continue the improvement because the Bulldogs are a really good side,” he said.
“They’re coming off a loss but they had some good form prior to that. They’re going to be hungry and at their best and it’s just about us making sure we play our best footy to give ourselves an even chance to win the game.”