The Dragons edged out Hull 24-18 in their first hit-out last week before going down 22-18 in Saturday’s Charity Shield clash at Mudgee.

McGregor found little cause for concern despite the scoreboard, but Rabbitohs hooker Damien Cook did give his former Illawarra Cutters coach something to think about ahead of round one.

Cook all but assured he’ll get the nod as Rabbitohs No. 9 after exposing the Dragons from dummy-half while Cody Walker also found some joy through the middle.

McGregor said it will be top of his list ahead of next Thursday’s road trip to Suncorp Stadium. 

“The big lesson was that they were a little bit more physical than we were and dominated the play-the-ball area a lot quicker than we did,” McGregor said.

“Cooky’s good at it. They got us around that scrum-line where they generated a [quick] play-the-ball and took that short-side on a couple of times and got some metres on us.

“We’ve definitely got to be more physical in our transition in our tackle and get off our line to bang and make the collision initially. We can generate line-speed from that.

“We’ve got to be physically more dominant as a side come round one. That’s what we’ve really got to work on the next 10 days.”

Saturday saw another encouraging performance from the club’s new-look spine with Matt Dufty again proving a stand-out at the back. 

“He’s certainly causing the opposition some grief with his speed and he’s getting a better tactical understanding,” McGregor said.

“Our halves played 80 minutes with Duft at the back which was nice.

“That combination will grow with Gareth [Widdop] and Benny [Hunt] over time.

“It’s nice to have that extra threat because of his speed and his ball-playing ability. 

“At times we used it too much so we’ve still got to get that balance of our power and our shift right and execute our finishes a little bit better.”