DEPARTING Dragons star Tyson Frizell says he won't leave a drop of petrol in the tank over the remainder of the season despite the finals door all but slamming shut last week.
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The Dragons let opportunities to draw level with the Sharks and Rabbitohs slip in consecutive weeks before dropping Thursday's clash to a heavily depleted Roosters outfit it in Wollongong.
They take on the high-flying Eels at Bankwest Stadium on Friday and need to win six of their last seven games to be any chance of a top eight finish.
It makes a finals swansong with the Dragons unlikely for Frizell, who'll link with Newcastle on a lucrative deal from next season, but the Test back-rower says he'll make good on his promise to leave nothing in reserve.
"When I made that decision the first thing I was conscious of was that, no matter what the result of the year and how things were going, I wasn't going to be looking for the door or anything like that," Frizell said.
"My greatest memories so far are obviously here at the club and I do everything I can week in, week out to perform for the club and the team. Regardless of how things go with our season, I'll be doing everything I can to play as well as I can for this team and this club.
"[Finals] hasn't been spoken about but it's there in the back of our minds, we know its come to the stage where it's win at all costs. If we're any mathematical chance of making the finals we need to get it started this week.
"We want to be improving every week but it's coming to the pointy end of the season where wins are what we need and we need to do whatever it takes to get them."
Last week's defeat to the Roosters, after the scores were locked at halftime, saw a continuation of a frustrating trend of drifting in and out of games.
It was most notably on display in surrendering a 16-0 lead to go down to Souths a fortnight ago, with Frizell describing the season as a "roller coaster."
"Sometimes you're looking for luck but we need to create our own luck at the moment and we're just not finding that," Frizell said.
"We're in games most of the time, in our last few matches we haven't been blown off the park, but we haven't really taken control of the game and put the nail in the coffin.
"It's always been a roller coaster of a game and that's kind of the way our season's gone, we've been good and come away with some wins but we've been pretty inconsistent."
The Dragons were rocked by the game-day withdrawal of Paul Vaughan on Thursday, with the Test prop fined $10,000 and ordered into 14-day quarantine after breaking NRL biosecurity protocols.
It will keep him out of the Eels clash and has seen the re-emergence of whispers suggesting coach Paul McGregor has lost the playing group - something Frizell refuted.
"All those kind of things get spoken about when you aren't playing so well," Frizell said.
"I think we all want to be playing a bit better and be in a different spot on the ladder but everyone's doing the best we can to come in after a loss and prepare as well as possible.
"We'll get Vaughany back when he's served his time. You don't want anyone to miss out on footy, especially a key player like him. It was spoken about through our group, he let us know the situation, and we just moved on straight away with that.
"It's something we can't control at the moment, we know we're in a tough situation with our protocols but, for us, it's just back to footy as usual. We're all unified in doing what we can to improve."