Kyle Flanagan happy steering Dragons' new left-edge demolition crew

Brought to the club as a hooking option, Flanagan has quickly found a home partnering Ben Hunt in the halves, and on a new-look left channel featuring in-season pick-up Luciano Leilua alongside wrecking balls Moses Suli and Mikaele Ravalawa.

Against Manly on Saturday, the trio combined for 38 carries for 347 metres and looked dangerous throughout.

It's an edge with potential to wreak havoc on defensive lines and, while there's plenty of moving parts so early in a campaign, Flanagan said it's not something he feels the need to overthink.

"I'm really loving it, I like to keep my job over there pretty simple," Flanagan said.

"They're strike players and they're good ball runners. Sometimes the best thing is just to give them the ball early, with time, and let them use their footwork and their strength.

"I think with Luch coming in, we want him to find his feet by running first. He's got a lot of footy in him as well.

"Hopefully that ball-playing will come throughout the season but, first of all, we want to base our season off hard running and high completions.

"The strength of those three guys is, first of all, carrying the football. If they start with that mentality about running first and probably passing later, that's going to set us up for a for a good game."

The Dragons moved to 2-2 with Saturday's win over Manly, halting a two-game losing slide that saw the Dragons concede 84 points in two outings.

While he described the varying performances over the opening month as "chalk and cheese" coach Shane Flanagan said his son's combination with Hunt has been one "piece of the puzzle" that's shown some consistency.

It's something Kyle feels he and his skipper have only scratched the surface on.

"[Shane] was always quite confident that, playing in the halves together, we would complement each other quite nicely," Flanagan said.

"I wasn't too sure how it would work out, but he's been spot on with that and I'm really loving my time working with Benny just learning off him every day.

"When I think about my best football that I've played in the NRL, I've played with another senior half outside me.

"I like to probably not be the main man, but just complement their game. [Hunt's] game's pretty well rounded, so anything he's doing I'm trying to copy.

"Hopefully that combination can continue to evolve. It's been working so far, we're two and two, and now we've got a big game against Newcastle on Friday."

Flanagan may be finding his groove alongside Hunt in attack, but he said it's no secret his side needed to address what father Shane described as "chalk and cheese" performances at the defensive end.

"We knew it was going to be a big game coming up against Manly with all the players they have in their team and the form they've had," Flanagan said.

"Personally, I've I've been quite positive about some of the things that we have been showing in games.

"Probably against the Dolphins, that wasn't a performance that we we want to pride ourselves on but, other than that, we've been attacking quite well.

"There's just been a few lapses in defence that caused us trouble the last couple of weeks. It was probably just a commitment thing, having that mentality of 'one more set to turn them away'.

"Turning away teams from your try-line, you get a lot of confidence and energy out of doing that.

"The last 12 minutes of the game, that's exactly what we had to do and that got us a win in the end. We had 17 players out there that wanted it more than them."