Hunt wanted out of Dragons 10 months ago. This is how Flanagan got him considering a contract extension

It was the Friday before the Manly game in round four when St George Illawarra coach Shane Flanagan asked Ben Hunt for a quiet word.

The Dragons were enjoying their weekly barbecue behind WIN Stadium and Flanagan wanted to get something off his chest.

All the headlines swirling around the club were about Zac Lomax wanting out at the end of this season – or even earlier. But Flanagan was interested in players who wanted to stay; he wanted to know if Hunt wanted to stick around beyond the end of his existing deal, which ends in 2025.

It was quite a turnaround, given Hunt demanded a release from the club just 10 months earlier. The skipper was already contracted for next year, but Flanagan wanted his halfback, captain and marquee man to start thinking seriously about playing on for another 12 months.

“I asked him, ‘What are you thinking about in the long term, and what does life look like for you at the end of next year?’” Flanagan says. “I know he has bought some property, that he’s been thinking the end is near, and how he might head home to country Queensland to retire.

“But I wanted him to know I was thinking about him in 2026. Benny is like Daly Cherry-Evans, where he looks after his body and is fit. I also want to attract elite players to this club, and a lot of questions I know I will be asked by elite players is, ‘Will Ben Hunt still be at the club?’

“Benny can see where we’re heading. I’m not saying I’m the best coach in the business, but I know how to put a side together, and I know how to win finals football. That’s what I endeavour to do at the Dragons. Ben is an important part. He’s here for 2025. Hopefully he’s here in 2026.”

Dragons fans are shocked Hunt is there now. In June last year Hunt wanted out altogether in the hope he could get back home to Queensland.

His good friend and coach Anthony Griffin had been shown the door, the club had failed to land a major signing and was on track to miss yet another NRL finals campaign.

After helping the Maroons to another Origin series victory, Hunt stood in the Suncorp Stadium sheds and told journalists: “We’ve enjoyed our time in Sydney, but we’re ready to come home. I have a meeting with the club on Monday and ‘Flanno’. I’m just hopeful they listen. We’ll see how we go.”

Hunt underestimated the backlash.

“It was out of control – I even had real estate agents in Brisbane ringing me about properties,” Hunt says. “My issue was never with Flanno. He was going to be a great guy for this job. It was just a heap of other things going on at the club at the time.”

One of those things was the sacking of Griffin, who Hunt was very close to. They both hail from Rockhampton and share a special bond. Hunt was unsure if he had the energy to invest in getting on board with yet another head coach, especially this late in his career.

But Flanagan and Hunt – on the surface an unlikely pairing – hit it off. They have become friends. Hunt enjoys Flanagan’s brutal honesty. Flanagan admires Hunt’s thick skin and ability to take a joke about his mega pay packet.

Ben Hunt is open to staying on one more year in 2026 at St George Illawarra, just nine months after he asked for an immediate release.

“He’s got plenty, and just once I’d love him to walk into my office with two coffees, not one,” Flanagan says with a smile. “They’re not that expensive, and knowing Benny, he’s struck up a contra deal with the local coffee shop.”

The coach and captain look relaxed and measured together, even when seated next to each other at post-match press conferences.

Flanagan often pokes fun at Hunt’s nose, which is bent out of shape from one too many tackles, and impossible to miss. “Benny can smell around corners,” Flanagan quips.

Flanagan has seen it all before. He was fortunate to work with skipper Paul Gallen for 10 years at Cronulla.

Gallen was tired of losing at the Sharks, and was tempted to join Manly on a big-money deal and the chance to join a club in the premiership window. But he stayed, drank Flanagan’s Kool-Aid and became the first Cronulla skipper to hold up the premiership trophy in 2016.

History is hopefully repeating at the Dragons with Flanagan and Hunt.

“Gal was like a son to me,” Flanagan says. “You have your arguments, your good times, your bad times, and you always get on with it.

“All Gal wanted was success. He stayed at Cronulla, we ended up recruiting Mick Ennis, James Maloney, Luke Lewis, Andrew Fifita … all guys who were not on the open market at the time, and we won a comp.

Shane Gallen and Paul Gallen celebrate Cronulla’s 2016 premiership with fans.

“It’s what I’d love to do here. Benny is the same. He’s a competitor. He wants success. The only knock is he’s a Queenslander, which does make it tough to like him.

“But he’s the captain of this club. I knew what his issues were last year. But I was never going to let him walk out the door. If I showed faith in him, he’d return it.”

As for that conversation at the back of WIN Stadium a couple of weeks ago at the barbie, Hunt says he had not given his long-term future much thought until then.

Shifting back over the border is a given. Becoming a specialist coach has appeal, but certainly not head coaching.

The only time Hunt remembers he is 34 – and closer to the end than the start – is when he spots former teammates sitting in the opposition coaches’ box. On Sunday, Benji Marshall, who spent the 2017 season at the Broncos with Hunt, will coach the opposition, Wests Tigers.

If Hunt does play on at the Dragons, he admits Flanagan will be a key factor.

“He asked me about another year, he told me he thought I could play on, and he wanted me to think about it,” Hunt says. “I definitely feel like my body can go another year. But a lot more goes into it than just my body being right.

“Little things are always in the back of your mind like, we need to be winning games, and what will Flanno be thinking by then, and will my body get worse? It’s tough getting out of bed after every game, but it’s harder after a loss. I do enjoy being coached by Flanno.”

Sounds like he might be drinking Flanagan’s Kool-Aid, too.

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