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Dragons coach Shane Flanagan is leaving no stone unturned in his bid to lure Joseph Manu, saying he could potentially be the club’s next captain.
Flanagan has made no secret of his admiration of Manu, who comes out of contract with the Roosters at the end of 2024 and is currently free to negotiate with rival clubs.
After previously saying the club was willing to shell out almost $5 million to pry Manu away from the Roosters, Flanagan offered the Kiwis star even more incentives to join the Dragons.
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“I’m really, really doubtful he’ll leave the Roosters, but I just wanted his management to know that if he wanted, he could be captain, fullback, do whatever he wants,” Flanagan told 9News Sydney.
“I’d definitely want to have a chat with him, but it’s highly unlikely it’ll ever get to that stage.
“I’m not saying I’ll take the captaincy off Ben (Hunt), but I want to get a quality player like Joey, I need to entice him to come down to the club.
“He’s a quality player, but let’s be really honest, I don’t think he’ll move.”
Hunt requested to leave the Dragons last season, but Flanagan has constantly backed the club to retain the 33-year-old. He said his confidence stems from conversations with the star halfback.
“Benny wants to win and that’s all it’s about,” he said.
“There’s a lot of other players, staff and supporters here that want to win football games.
“That’s why Ben was a bit frustrated and obviously another club came knocking on the door and gave him a possible opportunity, but we’ve had many conversations.
“This place is changing, you can look around, there’s new gyms, new players rec rooms and facilities.
“Some new players will come in and Ben will be a part of that. We’ve just got to win football games.”
While Flanagan is keen to add “quality players” to his roster, the Dragons coach said he isn’t prepared to break the bank to do so.
“Roster management is crucial and it’s probably something we haven’t been good at the last few years, so we need to make sure moving forward that our roster management is good,” he said.
“Our cap is in a really good space at the moment so we just need to get some quality players.
“When I was younger, I was a little bit reactive in signing players whereas now we need to make sure the players we get to the club are the ones we want two or three years down the track and are going to take us somewhere.”
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