It's been another long season for the St. George-Illawarra Dragons.

As some fans lived through disappointment after disappointment to start the year, others reveled in the losses knowing it brought them one step closer to a new head coach. Eventually, the front office gave Paul McGregor his marching orders and began to send the club down a new path.

Anthony Griffin is now in the driver's seat. He will have seen some of the positives over the last few weeks and be confident of building on them. However, he has a lot of work to do in addressing where the Dragons struggled the most if they're to return to the Top 8 in 2021.

The Good

The 2020 season will be remembered as the year Mary left for much of the Red V faithful. His rather strange and relatively unsuccessful seven-year stint as head coach is over and it has allowed some to look to the future with some hope. While Anthony Griffin has had his ups and downs as a head coach and comes in with a questionable reputation as a man-manager and motivator, he's a breath of fresh air for the club. 

Griffin will have spent the last few weeks of the season looking over the list while putting together a plan in his head for 2021. While the overall performance of the side in 2020 doesn't offer a lot of confidence for 2021, a handful of individual improvements ensures Griffin will have some promising tools to work with. 

Despite Zac Lomax being offered the fullback jersey to start the season, Matthew Dufty has pinched it and made it his for the long-term. A scintillating spell throughout the middle of the year came right when the Dragons needed it most as their attack failed to fire in the opening month.

Dufty recorded nine tries and eight try assists between Round 5 and 13 for the Dragons to win four of their nine games after dropping four in a row to start the season. He took over more of the ball-playing duties as McGregor made regular changes at hooker, halfback and five-eighth. Dufty, while it has become somewhat predictable of late, used his speed and support game to cross the line himself while firing long-balls to teammates out wide.

His speed means the defence can't afford to look past him or slide too early. That has opened up space for Dufty's long passes. 

Well aware that he offers very little as a kick-return fullback, Dufty has started to get more involved in yardage sets closer to halfway. Teams are looking wider further down the field and it's an area Dufty has started to exploit by running into space rather than trying to run at defenders on kick returns.

Instead, he hands it off to Mikaele Ravalawa who has started to justify all of the times McGregor kept him in the side following poor performances in 2019. Dean Young dropped Ravalawa for Round 18, but perhaps those sort of decisions have played a part in him missing out on the top job? Ravalawa is the club's leading try-scorer with 13 this season while he has increased his yardage from 123 running metres per game in 2019 to 143 running metres per game in 2020. His outrageous finishes in the corner have seen him become one of the most dangerous players close to the line in the competition.

But it's the reduction in errors that has most impressed. After making 28 errors in only 19 games last season, Ravalawa has cut that down to 16 in 16 games in 2020. You no longer need to hold your breath while Ravalawa is in possession of the ball.

As much as Ravalawa has improved on his own, Zac Lomax's rise has helped put him in try-scoring positions - as we see in his freakish finish above.

Mucked around to start his career, Lomax has found a home in the centres. He played off the bench, wing, fullback and centre throughout the first 17 games of his career. Young and inexperienced, the regular reshuffles didn't help. It appeared as though it would be more of the same in 2020 after Lomax played Round 1 at fullback and Round 2 on the wing. However, now approaching his 17th consecutive game starting in the centres, Lomax's name is being thrown around as a possible State of Origin bolter.

The 20-year-old has scored 12 tries, handed out six try assists, broken the line seven times and averaged 99 running metres per game this season. He's a powerful ball-runner with a dangerous offload and has proven to be valuable all the way up the field. A reliable goal-kicker and getting better every week, Lomax is developing into one of the best centres in the game. 

In Dufty, Ravalawa and Lomax, the Dragons have a dangerous young trio to work with in attack moving forward. While not standing out quite like the three players out wide, Blake Lawrie, Josh Kerr and Jackson Ford have all been excellent in the middle and taken strong leaps in their careers.

With big names, albeit mostly out of form, in Ben Hunt, Corey Norman, Tariq Sims, Cameron McInnes, Paul Vaughan and possibly Jack de Belin returning for 2021, there are good signs for Griffin and the Dragons despite the low position on the ladder they will finish in 2020.

The Bad

Adam Clune has become a reliable first-grade footballer in 2020 to play 14 games. He's not going to blow an opposition team away and is unlikely ever to be known for his individual match-winning performances. But he has proven to be the best option for the Dragons at halfback in this season. That... isn't good.

An in-form spine of Dufty, Norman, Hunt and McInnes is one that wouldn't look out of place if firmly sat inside the Top 8 right now. Instead, Dufty, Norman and Hunt have all been dropped at one stage this season to force regular reshuffles to the spine and stall any development of cohesion in key playmaking positions. As a result, and despite all of the attacking talent riddled throughout this side, the Dragons have averaged just 18.3 points per game in 2020 (10th).

A lot of St George-Illawarra's struggles in attack come through their 11th-ranked 25 tackles inside the opposition 20 per game. They simply don't give themselves enough opportunities in good ball areas to score. It's surprising when you see the Dragons rank 6th in yardage with 1,756 running metres per game. With a strong pack and outside backs willing to take tough carries, the Dragons don't have a problem churning over running metres.

So, how are they only playing out a little over four sets per game inside the opposition 20-metre line?

The Dragons allow the opposition to run the second-most metres in the competition at 1,842 metres per game. Only the lowly Brisbane Broncos give the opposition side an easier ride up the field.

It's not through a lack of discipline. The Dragons make the second-fewest errors (10.1) and give away the second-fewest penalties (4.0) per game in the NRL. They attempt the fourth-fewest ineffective tackles (13.9) and miss the fifth-fewest tackles (25.9); positive numbers considering the Dragons make the most tackles in the competition at 382 per game.

By giving up so many metres, the Dragons often start sets deep in their own half. They're forced to do the hard yards and that soon translates into a tired defence which concedes 22.6 points per game.

The Dragons should be a lot stronger through the middle with the names they have in the side, but in 2020, their inability to close up and keep the opposition from surging up the field has resulted in both their attack and defence falling below the NRL averages.

The Future

Griffin has been tasked with taking the Dragons back to the finals.

He has plenty of detractors. He's not overly personable and isn't the motivator the Craig Bellamy's, Wayne Bennett's and Trent Robinson's of the coaching world are. Not so focused on teaching the little things in the game, he leaves a lot on the cutting room floor. However, Griffin walks into an experienced side for 2021. Hunt, Norman, Dufty and McInnes don't need to be taught the basics. Sims and Vaughan have played State of Origin football and know what it takes to get there. While relatively inexperienced, Kerr, Lawrie and Ford are well on their way to promising first-grade careers and will be 25, 24 and 23 years old in 2021 respectively. We've already covered what Dufty, Ravalawa and Lomax can bring on the attacking side of the ball.

The talent is there.

While the results in 2020 don't suggest as much, Griffin takes over a team that can at least compete for a spot in the Top 8 next season. 

Did you enjoy this article? Join our free mailing list to get the best content delivered straight to your inbox, or join the conversation by leaving a comment below or on the Stats Insider Twitter or Facebook page.