Dragons’ Blues aspirants on Fittler’s radar

The horse in this case is new NSW coach Brad Fittler, who has let McGregor know that the Dragons 4-0 start to the season hasn’t escaped his attention.

It’s likely only injury will keep Tyson Frizell out of the blue jumper he’s worn for the past two seasons, but the likes of Jack de Belin, Paul Vaughan, Tariq Sims, Cameron McInnes and Euan Aitken have all put their hand up in their side’s flying start to the season.

Fittler has been an unabashed fan of the Dragons crop of Blues hopefuls, in particular de Belin and Vaughan, in his role as a channel nine commentator.

His ascension to the NSW coaching role has thrown open the door for a new breed of Blues aspirants, but McGregor said his crop of hopefuls need to produce consistently good form to make the representative leap.

“Every player that plays wants to play at the highest level which is representative footy,” McGregor said.

“Brad’s mentioned it plenty of times, that he wants the Sydney teams to be doing well around Origin time.

“Origin time is round 12 and there’s a fair bit of footy to be played between now and round 12.

“Are they in form, yes, do I think they’re Origin players, absolutely, but they’ll need to be consistent for a lot more than four weeks to get those honours.

“They’ve got to oust people who are currently there that are Australian [Test] players that have been Origin players for a long time.

“As I say to the boys, if they’re team’s doing really well, and they’re a part of that team that’s doing really well around Origin time, they’ll pick form players because it’s a fresh new look.

“Brad’s mentioned that many a time, and he’s told me we have got players that are in contention, but only if they’re playing consistently well in clubland.”

The representative season is shaping as a real juggling act for McGregor, with Ben Hunt’s form likely to see him remain in the Queensland 17 as either a replacement for Cooper Cronk at halfback or as a bench utility.

If fit, Gareth Widdop and James Graham will also be part of Wayne Bennett’s England squad for its Test clash with New Zealand in Denver in June. 

It complicates a period of the season the Dragons have traditionally struggled to navigate and McGregor admitted he has already given some thought to contingency planning.

“Certainly we’ve looked at that part of the year and what we can do differently to what we have done in the past,” McGregor said.

“We haven’t always ridden it that well and we’ve also got a few injuries out of it at different stages. Fortunately enough we’ve got a couple of [key] guys there who aren’t in Origin, they’re Internationals for other countries.

“I’ve mentioned it before, the balance of our squad is a bit deeper this year with youth and experience. We’ve got guys that have debuted last year, and the year before, that are more hardened to handle that time around Origin.

“You can put all these things in place but you don’t know until you get there who you’re going to miss and who you’re going to have out.

“Certainly winning like we are at the moment is a benefit, that’s for sure.”