NRL finals where Dragons belong: McGregor

The Dragons performed CPR on their finals hopes with a gritty two-point win over Penrith last week, making their final-round play-offs equation a simple one.

A win over Canterbury on Sunday would see the Dragons finish the regular season on 30 competition points, with a healthy differential enough to secure a top-eight berth.

Having set the early season pace, McGregor said a finals berth would be fitting, but that remains in his side’s hands.

“I do [think we deserve to be there], but in saying that, every team’s got their different stories to tell,’ McGregor said.

“Our for and against is exceptional, it shows where we’ve improved as a football team.

“You look at the first third of the year we were outstanding, the second third we were disrupted by injury and Origin, and then the third bit we’ve been inconsistent.

“It’s been a journey. We’ve lost some games we needed to win but now it’s time to forget about all that and go out there and win a game of footy.

“We’re where we need to be, which is the key to finals footy in our hands, we’ve just got to go out there and win. We’ve known that for a while to.

“Obviously each game you lose, you’ve got to win the next one but we knew that our for and against was that good that if we got into a position where we could get to 30 points we’d play finals footy.

“That has to happen tomorrow.”

Last week’s victory came without star centre Josh Dugan, who was dropped from the clash after missing the team bus.

It’s dominated the discussion in the lead-up to Sunday’s game, but McGregor said he and Dugan had quickly put a line under it in preparation for the Dogs clash.

“It’s important that discipline, on and off the field, is at it’s best at this time of year going into finals footy,” McGregor said.

“The most disciplined sides win close games of footy and, right now, our discipline needs to be at it’s best. It was game-day someone overstepped the mark and was stood down. 

“The [ill]discipline was that he missed the bus and from that we’ve moved forward. It’s been forgotten.

“[Dugan’s] really focused and determined and that’s dangerous for the opposition.”

The Dragons recent record against Canterbury doesn’t make for comfortable reading for the red v faithful, with the Bulldogs having won 10 of the last 11 games between the two sides.

That includes a 16-2 win at ANZ Stadium in round 14 this season, but McGregor said his side isn’t fazed by the recent history.

“Every game different players play, every year you have different squads so tomorrow will be different again,” McGregor said.

“They’re an opposition we need to beat to make finals footy. We’ve just got to worry about what we need to do and get out there and play our best brand.

“They’ve got a couple of players leaving the club, so they’ll go out to play a tough brand of footy and send them off in a good way, but they’re just someone in the road.

“We just have to worry about ourselves and get a result, which is a win, and we play finals footy.”