Possession key as Dragons still can't shake fade-outs

Sorry Dragons fans, you knew what this one was going to be. So what actually went wrong for the Dragons? Blaming State of Origin would be an easy excuse, particular with high work-rate forwards like Jack De Belin and Tyson Frizell getting heavily sapped over that period.But the club had non-Origin players whose form also dropped off. Whether that is a flow-on effect from reduced go-forward from the rep players is up for debate. What do the stats say?Virtually all the relevant statistical categories dropped away in rounds 17-25
compared to 1-16. Obviously, points scored and conceded is the end result but it looks like it all came from the back of one fundamental – failure to control possession.For 16 rounds the Dragons commanded an imposing 53.7% of possession on average according to NRL.com Stats; some weeks it was up close to 60%. They just weren't giving opponents a chance to get into the game.In that period they ran 1600m per week and made just 300 tackles.Over the final nine games that completely flipped on its head. In that period they held just 46.4% of the ball – almost a direct reversal. Suddenly, what they were doing to other teams was being done to them.