St George Illawarra: Young return to Dragons as Flanagan assistant confirmed

The 2010 premiership-winning hero moved straight into the coaching ranks at the Dragons following his retirement in 2012, moving up the ranks to become Paul McGregor's assistant at NRL level.

He was appointed interim coach following McGregor's mid-season departure in 2020, but was ultimately overlooked for the head coaching role in favour of Anthony Griffin.

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He subsequently shifted to North Queensland under Todd Payten where he oversaw a defensive revamp that took the Cowboys to the top four last season.

He was on the shortlist for the Dragons head coaching role following Griffin's sacking earlier this year, but was again overlooked, this time in favour of Flanagan.

Flanagan has also brought about a staff reunion from his premiership-winning days at Cronulla, with high performance manager Dan Lawson to join the club's football department from the Titans ahead of the 2024 season.

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Andrew Gray will also be part of the 2024 staff as a high performance consultant, with the pair having also previously worked at the Dragons through the Wayne Bennett era.

"To have people of the calibre, experience and knowledge of Dean, Dan and Andrew involved in the football program in 2024 is only going to make the club stronger," Dragons general manager of football Ben Haran said.

"We look forward to building out the rest of the football department staff with Shane over the coming months."

The club release confirming the appointments on Friday made no mention of current interim coach Ryan Carr's future beyond this season.

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