STANDING in the tunnel, just outside the dressing room, Steve Price manages a cheeky smile.
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“Well, we f….. that up,” he says with a laugh belying the painful disappointment which comes with losing on such a big occasion.
It’s 2009 and then Dragons under 20s coach Price has just watched a train wreck unfold, in the form of a 36-12 preliminary final loss to the Wests Tigers.
The Dragons were hot favourites on the back of a seven game winning streak and finishing second on the ladder.
Future NRL premiership players Trent Merrin and Kane Linnett, as well as Cameron King, Beau Henry, Jake Marketo, Kyle Stanley, Dean Whare, Shannon Wakeman and Jarrod Thompson were part of a talented cast.
It was an opportunity missed, a year before St George Illawarra broke their NRL premiership drought at the same venue.
While talking to Price, we’re surrounded by some of the game’s all-time greats in Ray Price, Brett Kenny and Terry Lamb, who were waiting to be part of the Parramatta-Canterbury NRL pre-game build-up.
It just heightens the sense of what success looks like and how Price’s young Dragons missed out.
Like David Moyes following Sir Alex Ferguson at Manchester United, Price went on to be the man after the man.
Taking over the reins after Wayne Bennett led the club to the promised land would prove mission impossible.
Especially when the Dragons failed to map out a strategic direction and rebuild the roster after Bennett’s short-term – and successful – salary cap planning.
The fans fumed about the fall from grace and the messiah complex was formed, solidifying the belief one of the Dragons’ own is unable to win an NRL premiership as coach.
An assistant to Bennett in 2010, Price’s ability as a head coach really comes down to who you talk to.
One retired player who was at the Dragons when Price was coach says the squad struggled to buy into his plans.
Price’s fallout with premiership player Jamie Soward added a sour tinge to his tenure. But it was well known there were tensions between Soward and the coaching staff even when Bennett was there, sometimes with other players as well.
Price became increasingly frustrated, some say paranoid, about criticism of him as coach.
Others are adamant Price has a wonderful football brain, but his opportunity came at the wrong time.
"When I first came to the Dragons, he was only one of two staff I kept here,” Bennett said when Price was announced as his successor.
“I made a few enquiries. Everywhere I went – ex-players, some of the current players – they all had a rap on him.”
Still, it’s all just picking over old wounds, as Price prepares to help Cronulla to a premiership on Sunday night. In 2014, Price moved to assist Shane Flanagan at the Sharks, less than three months after players accepted the back-dated bans from ASADA, over the Stephen Dank supplements saga.
It had been six months since Paul McGregor replaced him as Dragons coach.
“Shane is looking to implement cultural change and I’m keen to be a part of that,” Price said at the time.
Price will play a major role as the Sharks’ runner on Sunday, the on-field voice for Flanagan.
He will undoubtedly be in the middle of celebrations when the final siren sounds, if Cronulla can win their first premiership in 50 years.
Knee injuries forced Price into a premature playing retirement, entering the coaching ranks in his mid 20s.
Like the Dragons under 20s class of 2009, Price’s time as head coach in Wollongong came to a painful end.
But, along with Dragons cast-off Matt Prior, Price was in on the ground floor when Flanagan and the Sharks rebuilt from the depths of despair.