Dragons assistant coach Michael Ennis has departed the club in the wake of Shane Flanagan and head of football Ben Haran being shown the door.
Ennis will follow Flanagan in leaving St George Illawarra after a short stint as the club’s attacking coach.
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Ennis joined as an assistant ahead of the 2026 season, having reunited with Flanagan after the pair enjoyed a premiership-winning season in 2016.
In his place, Tom Eisenhuth, who has been involved in the club’s pathways and academy systems, has been upgraded to an NRL assistant coaching role for this week’s match.
“Mick contributed professionally during his time at the Dragons and has been a valued member of the coaching staff. We thank him for his efforts during his time at the Dragons,” Dragons CEO Tim Watsford said.
“We wish Mick and his family all the very best for the future.”
Dean Young, meanwhile, has been in control of the Dragons’ defence and will remain as the interim head coach for the remainder of the season.
A former premiership-winner with the club during his playing days, Young has been coaching for 14 years and was an assistant coach of the NSW Blues under Laurie Daley.
He has since resigned from that role to put all his focus into the Dragons and has already started to make changes, which started with the “hard” call on Ennis.
“That one was hard, mate, to be honest,” Young said on the decision to part ways.
“As I said, the best part of coaching is giving kids their debut and the toughest part of the job is telling people that there’s no job here for them. I’ve known Mick for a long time. I played with him back in 2005.
“I’ve got a good relationship with him and unfortunately he’s part of the change. We need a circuit breaker. We need things to look different. We need things to feel different.
“I’ve got nothing against him as a coach. I think potentially he could be a good head coach down the track, but for me I need different voices. I need a playing group to feel different.”
Ennis’ departure marks an eventful 24 hours for the embattled Red V, who are yet to win a game this season.
Meanwhile, Dragons chairman Andrew Lancaster and chief executive Tim Watsford said Flanagan’s position at the club was no longer tenable in a press conference on Monday.
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Lancaster also took a swipe at media coverage of the club this season.
“There has been a lot of media coverage of the Dragons over these past few weeks. A lot of it absolutely deserved. Some of it poor, and some of it about personal agendas,” Lancaster said.
“I’ve been in media longer than most. Our coverage of this great game, of this great club, should be better.
“Readers, viewers and listeners do deserve better.
“I didn’t say it was unfair, I said a lot of it was poor. And I said there were personal agendas being dealt with along the way.”
In response to those comments, NRL360 host Braith Anasta fired back by saying they were “weak as piss”.
“I think it’s a convenient narrative Andrew Lancaster is pushing to try and smother his own poor leadership and decisions that he has made the last couple of years,” he said.
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“To try and point his finger at the media and me, indirectly, I thought was weak as piss, just like his press conference was. He took no accountability today.
“He had an opportunity to have some backbone, to have some balls and sit there and say I’ve made some poor decisions, we’ve made some poor decisions, we’ve got it wrong at times.
“But to reiterate to the fans, the St George Illawarra fans that we’re not going to stand for it any longer. We’re going to make the right decisions moving forward and we’re going to be better.
“Instead, he tried to blame it on everyone else bar himself and I don’t know if he’s come at me or not but he’s come at the media. You don’t need to be Einstein to work out that they’ve created records by losing 11 games in a row.”
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