The Dragons are in the top eight. Can their fans dare to dream?

One of Wayne Bennett’s golden rules is, ‘Don’t get a shit haircut’ – which makes the abomination sported by Felise Kaufusi on the back of his balding scalp even more inexplicable. Maybe the super coach has relaxed his standards in his twilight.

If he was still coaching his old club, the Dragons, he would only have half a squad. You can just imagine him marching the likes of Ray Faitala-Mariner, Jaydn Su’a, Luciano Leilua, Moses Suli and Christian Tuipulotu to the nearest barber and saying, ‘Don’t come back until it’s fixed’.

But what works for Wayne Bennett might not work for Shane Flanagan. And what Flanagan has is a team of odds and bobs sitting inside the top eight two-thirds of the way through the NRL season, trouncing Bennett’s short-back-and-sides soldiers the Dolphins on Sunday.

So, now is about the right time to ask: can St George Illawarra actually make the finals? Can one of the pre-season wooden spoon favourites, from a club which hasn’t played finals in six years, actually reach September?

“You can definitely feel the excitement building, inside the club and outside,” shrugged skipper Ben Hunt after a second-half blitz in the 26-6 win at Kogarah.

“You run into fans in the street and they’re all really excited, feeling good about where the club is going. Today, there’s a really good and passionate crowd out there in ordinary conditions. It’s exciting, but we’ve still got some work to do to please those fans more.”

What Flanagan has done with his squad should be enough to have him sneaking into Dally M Coach of the Year contention, which is not to disrespect the fine work Cameron Ciraldo has done at the Bulldogs, or Bennett at the Dolphins, who are wobbling and now joined by the Dragons on 20 points, or Craig Bellamy at the Storm, or Craig Fitzgibbon at the Sharks.

It was simply that no one gave them a chance this year.

His hair bears are a good example: Faitala-Mariner was a club captain shunted out of the Bulldogs after taking a stand with Ciraldo; Su’a couldn’t wait to leave at the end of the Anthony Griffin era (he’s now re-signed and in career best form); Luciano Leilua walked out of a Townsville court in a shirt and thongs after a low-level drink-driving charge but looks a new player in Red V; and Tuipulotu came in for injured State of Origin hero Zac Lomax at short notice and was one of his side’s best against the Dolphins.

It goes on and on.

But maybe the desire was best shown with five minutes to go on Sunday when Dolphins star Herbie Farnworth, a former Manchester United development player, soccered through a loose ball. The Dragons had the match all but one, but Suli – not known for his defensive desperation – sprinted back and jolted the ball free in a diving tackle just as Farnworth was about to dive over the line.

“Things like that, you can look at the scoreboard and not react,” Flanagan said when asked about the play. “That’s the team we want to be. No matter what the scoreboard says, we scramble and save tries. That’s a good example. I’ll be showing that during the week.”

Still, the riddle remains: can the Dragons actually play a strong 80 minutes?

They led the Bulldogs at half-time and lost by 32. Looked abysmal against Penrith in one half, blew them off the park in the other. Trailed the Tigers at the break then scored 44 unanswered points. Led Manly, who were down to one player on their bench, and then capitulated.

Against the Dolphins, they didn’t score a try with a howling southerly at their back, then piled on five without reply – albeit against a team which lost star hooker Jeremy Marshall-King with a first-half foot injury and Kurt Donoghoe to the sin-bin late on. It might be just enough to get their fans dreaming.

“Most things in football that can go wrong [did in the second half],” Bennett said of the Dolphins. “[We] lost our way. We couldn’t hold the ball. They had 26 sets and we had 13. That’s not the way it should be.”

He could have said the same about the ladder. Next week, the Dragons will clash with the Roosters, the same team which put 60 points on them in the Anzac Day blockbuster. Motivation much?

“It’s already been mentioned in the sheds,” said Flanagan, who was celebrating his 200th NRL game as coach. “It’s a bit of redemption - and we’ll know where we’re at.”

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