Shane Flannagan Interview | Previews game against Penrith, Weighs in on epic potato debate & more!
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Let's bring in Shane Flanagan, the coach of the Dragons, who's been waiting patiently, listening to this great show. And I've got some news to share with you relating to Coach Flanagan. What is it? He'll be making a return to the continuous call team next Saturday. Oh, double dipping. Talk about double dipping. He'll be in Alana's chair, our rotating chair, where we share the love amongst all of our people. Shane Flanagan, good afternoon to you, sir. Good afternoon, team. You're looking forward to next week?

No, I've got a few things on before that, so I'll worry about that when it comes round, Mark. Jeez, I hope you win on the Friday night. You might be a bit cranky on the Saturday. Well, you've got to beat the West Tigers. They don't beat anyone. Don't say that. Maybe you guys. Don't say that. I suppose you've got to get over this one first. I might be sick next Saturday. How are you, Shane? Obviously, another big game this afternoon, taking on the reigning premiers. Tough assignment for you boys?

Yeah, of course it is. You know, Penrith, it doesn't matter really who wears the jersey. You know, they've got a real good style of football and a winning style of football. And, you know, out here they're hard to beat and, you know, we've got tricky conditions as well. So, you know, we've got a few changes. You know, we've got three in origin and then we lost two last week to injury. So...

We've got five new boys coming in, and I'm excited about that. You know, new players bring energy, and, you know, we just need to put a good performance against a really good footy club. So today's the day. It makes it unpredictable for both coaches, doesn't it, Flannery, just having so many changes. But what about the two boys for the Panthers on debut? Do you know anything about them? They're both coming off the bench.

Yeah, one's a half hooker and one's another back rower. He played a little bit of fullback as well. So, you know, they've been in the system here at Penrith for a while and, you know, as I said earlier,

Penrith have just got this knack of putting players into their team during this period. I've watched them over the last couple of years and obviously with Nathan being out, they'll put a young half in there and he'll just do the job and we expect that today, that they'll just come out and those young fellows will do the job that the club's required. Did you give any thought to playing Kyle at half back in this game, your son? Because Jesse Mask, isn't he a hooker?

He's played a little bit of hooker, Darrell. He's played more half. To me, seven or six, it doesn't really make any difference what number they wear on the back. Kyle's got a job to do today. It's a little bit different than when he plays with Ben Hunt. He's sort of got to stand up today. He won't do...

Still, Jesse Marske will do most of the kicking. Right foot kicker down the right-hand side. Kyle's a right foot kicker, unfortunately. He's on the left-hand side, so it makes it a bit more difficult. But Jesse will do most of the kicking and then Kyle will do a little bit of the organising. But everyone needs to stand up today in our team. We've got some experienced players and the loss of your origin players and a few injuries. We need to stand up.

Flannery, when your boys win, you defend well. It's pretty obvious. You keep teams to 12, sort of 14 points. When you lose, you get 30 or 40 points scored against you. How do you narrow that gap?

It's a tricky one, Gail. We just need to continue to train and practice. These boys have been through a couple of tough years and I feel that the systems that we'll put in place, unfortunately we're going to have these moments that we play well. I thought last week against the Dogs we played well in the first half and then they were too good for us in the second half.

We need to be consistent, and that needs to come from your training. So week in, week out, month after month, year after year, get that consistency in our training, and we'll start to see consistent results come through. Now, Shane, you've been sitting here listening to Darryl's discussion about potatoes. Are you with him or against him? I'm with Gal.

You're with Gow. Yeah, I'm with Gow. What? Oh, you're an idiot. That's common sense. It is common sense. It's like saying what's heavier, a kilo of feathers or a kilo of concrete. No, it's nothing to do with it. It's not like that. It's exactly the same thing. It's a kilo. It's nothing to do with it. It's a kilo, mate. And most of it's skin. No, that's not true. Yeah, I'm now I'm with Gow and...

Gail said, I don't know when, last time he peeled a potato. I reckon I would have peeled a potato about 20 years ago. You? Yeah, never. Never done it. So Kathy does all the work, does she? Yes. She does all the cooking? Yes. Are you like Gail in a lot of ways, like just give her the money and just run for your, don't have anything to do with her other than that? I beg your pardon? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't think Gail gives her the money. She does. Yeah, he doesn't give her a ton of trust. Gail hides the money. She's got the plastic. You just said that. I went round to Gail's house one day and he said all the downpipes are overflowing because there's all the money and stuff. LAUGHTER

And Flanagan wanted me to pay him to fix it. I couldn't find any cash, though. Hey, Gal, did you see Shane Flanagan was a victim of artificial intelligence during the week? Artificial, was he really? Where was the video of him suggesting that Kyle will be getting the wooden spoon when he got home after the performance? Oh, I did see it. Have you seen that video, Shane? Yeah, I saw one of Craig Fitzgibbon, actually, too, very, very similar, that said that...

Nico would still get the six Dele end points even though he went off in the first half. So it was very good. He was very good when I sent it to him. I always danger, so it's honestly dangerous. It's scary. It's absolutely scary. So are you going to be serious next Saturday or are you going to sort of drop your guard a bit as the

you know, from NRL coach to complete Stark Ravey Mad Lunatic with us? I'll tell you about 9.30, 10.30 next Friday night. What sort of showing fun are you going to get on Saturday? How are you handling losses? Not real good. No? Not real good. Yeah. But you're not used to it, are you? Oh, well, I think, I don't know. Well, what's your record? Do you know your percentage wins and losses? No, I don't know exactly. Wouldn't you think it would be around 58.5? LAUGHTER

From 2015 onwards, yeah, we're pretty good. We're up in the top four most years. Yeah. No, I think most years at the Sharks, probably by the first year, we made the semifinals every year. So, you know, we're pretty consistent. And that's what we've got to try and do at the Dragons. When you go to the press conference today, just don't put your head on the table, okay? Yeah.

I love that when you did that last week. Was that last week or the week before? Yeah, it was just a little bit of fun. It was good. I thought it was funny. There was only one journalist in there and just had a bit of a joke. Only one journalist? Where were the others?

Probably getting ready for Origin. You're not going to spit the dummy like Sowey did when no one turned up to his press conference. Mate, I'd be quite happy if no one turns up. I'll just get in there and get out. Is that punishing for you blokes? Like having to do press conferences? Oh, no, it's just part of the job. You know, as I said, some of you go in there on the back of a win. You know, it's just part of the job. You go in there after a loss, it's...

Not so good. Not so good. Quickly, how can we get out of here? But, you know, it's part of the job and get on with it. Well, the access to the Dragons this year has been fantastic under Flannery, so well done. All right, well, we won't take up any more of your time. We don't want to have too much fun with you because you're in coaching mode, but next Saturday the gloves are off, OK? Can't wait, Levy, can't wait. I've got some pictures of you tiling yesterday. Didn't look real good.

What do you mean? You're putting tiles on, like ceramic tiles on your little restaurant. I'm a great grouter. He actually declared to me this week he was a great grouter. You're a great grouter. Grouter. Grouter. Really? Grouter. And then you know what you had to do the next day? You had to go back the next day to clean it because he stuffed it all up.

Well, I've never done it before and no one told me I had to clean it up. You can't be that great. Paul. Well, I thought I was good. When you mix grout up, you put water in it and then you grout the tiles and then you wipe it off. Well, no one told me that. You don't let it dry. Oh, so you let it dry on the tile. No one told me that. That would be a common sense thing. Listen, I'm a radio broadcaster. I'm not a tiler. I don't know what...

to do. He declared you the best grouter alive and you left the grouter dry on the tiles. It looked good after I wiped it off. You know what else? I got in trouble. I used the angle grinder to cut one of the tiles to get on the edge, but I was holding it up, doing it, so I had to line it up and someone said, you're going to take your finger off. I was very, very close to losing my finger. Thank you for that, Shane. We'll catch you next week. Goodbye. Bye-bye. There he is, Shane Flanagan. Good luck this afternoon, Flano. Dragons taking on the Panthers here at the foot of the mountains.