POSITIONAL switches are all the rage in modern rugby league.

Fullbacks want to be five-eighths, centres want to be fullbacks and every front rower alive believes he could play halfback if somebody just gave him a chance.

Josh Dugan, one of the best fullbacks in the NRL and the incumbent Blues custodian, made a brief switch to the centres back in 2014 and word is coming out of Wollongong that a permanent switch could be on the cards for 2016. But should the move happen, is it the right call?

What’s best for the Dragons?

The Dragons attack was one of their real weak spots in 2015 with the club scoring the second least amount of points in the league. While their defence, particularly in the first half of the year, was top notch, their attacking output left much to be desired. They were one of only two teams to not have a player score more than 10 tries (Gareth Widdop was their leading tryscorer with nine) and they scored less than 20 points in 17 of their 25 matches.

Widdop and Benji Marshall combined for 43 try assists, the equal second most for any halves duo, so the problem doesn’t seem to be the creation of opportunities but rather capitalising on chances.

Far and away their best player last season, Widdop was both the best attacking weapon the team had and one of their better finishers and he looks very dangerous when he links with Marshall as a second receiver.

The only backline positions that are seemingly locked in are Tim Lafai at left centre and Jason Nightingale on the right wing. The remaining pieces that Paul McGregor can fit in are Dugan, Euan Aitken, Peter Mata’utia and new recruits Kurt Mann, Kalifa Faifai Loa and Adam Quinlan. McGregor’s looming decision about what to do with Dugan looks set to decide the entire formation of the Dragons backline.

Mata’utia can play all three outside back positions and this versatility will likely see him shifted to the left wing, assuming that the Titans don’t manage to snap him up. If he does head north, Faifai Loa, who will enter his second stint with the club, has played the majority of his football on the left flank and would be an easy fit.

That leaves Mann, Aitken, Dugan and Quinlan to fill out right centre and fullback. Mann played most of 2015 at right centre for the Storm but was dropped midway through the season before being recalled for the semi-final run. He’s an interesting prospect and not without upside, but last year was definitely one to forget for the Queenslander.

He managed just four tries in 20 matches, including only one in his first 17 outings, and his defence was shaky on a good day and horrendous on a bad one. Primarily a fullback in his junior days, Mann looked promising in his brief stints in the No. 1 jersey in 2014.

As it stands, he should only be a backup choice at centre but is a superior option to Quinlan at fullback.

The Dragons have a lively prospect coming out of the under-20s in Matthew Dufty, but he’s not ready to make the step up to NRL level just yet.

Aitken was a real find for the Dragons in 2015 with the local junior playing 23 matches and doing good work as hard-running metre eater. His 114 metres gained per match was the fourth highest average on the team, behind just Dugan, Nightingale and Trent Merrin.

He might lack top-end speed, but Aitken’s power and tackle-breaking ability make him a fine long-term prospect for the Dragons.

With all this in mind, from a personnel standpoint it makes much more sense for Dugan to play fullback.

The talent across the positions with a Dugan-Mata’utia-Lafai-Aitken-Nightingale backline is far superior to any alternative and would give the Dragons their most potent backline since the Wayne Bennett era.

What’s best for Dugan?

Dugan is reportedly very keen on moving to right centre, but the reasoning behind the switch is a little less solid. Given his excellent form at fullback for the Blues in 2015, which saw him win the Brad Fittler Medal as NSW’s best player, he seems to have secured the fullback spot at that level barring some horrible misfortune.

Switching to centre would allow Laurie Daley to accommodate Dugan and somebody like Matt Moylan or James Tedesco in the same side but given the Blues’ depth at centre — Michael Jennings and Josh Morris have been two of the state’s best in recent years and James Roberts and Dylan Walker are lurking in the background — a move to the centres does not guarantee a representative berth.

The knock on Dugan is that he’s fragile and injury prone and while he has missed a fair chunk of football since debuting in 2009, last season marked just the second time that he’s played more than 20 matches. He’s gotten much bigger in recent years and has subsequently become much more durable.

A move to the centres would decrease his workload and potentially prolong his career but given that he’s just 25 and is entering what should be his athletic prime it would seem strange if such concerns were already at the forefront of his mind.

Where is he more effective?

We need to remember that Dugan has played 104 NRL matches at fullback and only 12 matches and two Origin games at centre (his remaining three NRL games came in an ill-fated switch to five-eighth in 2012 that we should all agree never to discuss again) but it’s always worth looking at the numbers.

What’s strange for a ball-runner of his calibre is that Dugan isn’t exactly a prolific try-scorer. He has 38 tries in his 103 matches at the back, which is serviceable, but doesn’t compare to the likes of James Tedesco (30 tries in 49 games at fullback) or Lachlan Coote (43 tries in 89 games as a fullback) and doesn’t hold up well when compared to Greg Inglis (59 tries in 97 matches at fullback) or Jarryd Hayne (67 tries in 115 matches. Brett Stewart (162 tries in 221 matches at the back) and Billy Slater (166 tries in 270 matches at fullback) eat him alive by comparison even if their totals are halved.

But when Dugan moves to centre, the four-pointers flow like a river. Again, we need to keep in mind that it’s a much smaller sample size but in 14 club and rep matches at centre Dugan has scored 10 tries. From his debut in 2009 it took him 34 matches to score the same amount of tries.

Scoring tries isn’t everything and Dugan makes invaluable contributions in other ways, but it is a curious outcome for one of the more dangerous attacking players in the competition to have such diminished returns. Be it a function of the game plan, the way his team plays or some kind of deficiency in his own style, Dugan simply does not score as many tries as other fullbacks.

Dugan’s greatest strength at fullback is his excellent kick returning.

On a consistent basis, there are few fullbacks in the NRL who make as many metres returning the ball or break as many tackles as Dugan.

His 166 metres per game were fourth in the NRL this season and third among fullbacks, behind just Roger Tuivasa-Sheck and Cameron Munster. He was also one of only four players to break more than 100 tackles and trailed only Tuivasa-Sheck and Tedesco in that category.

Dugan has always had a gift for tackle busts — he broke 170 tackles with Canberra in 2010, one of the highest single season totals in NRL history. The thrust and go-forward he gives his team at the start of sets is truly invaluable at both club and state level and it is the primary feature of his game as a fullback, which more than makes up for his below average try-scoring strike rate.

A point that was raised earlier this month by McGregor was that Dugan is not what you’d call a natural ball-player and given the tendency of many modern coaches to funnel their attack through their fullback such a skillset becomes vital.

Dugan’s passing game isn’t his best quality as he’s always been a runner first and foremost and while he’s good enough to get by, he just doesn’t provide a strong ball-playing presence.

His career high of 10 try assists came back in 2010 and in the last three seasons he’s managed two, three and one per year. His has a career total of 30 try assists — to compare, James Tedesco led all fullbacks for try assists in 2015 with 19.

However as the Broncos, and to a lesser extent the Cowboys and Raiders showed in 2015, it’s becoming feasible for teams to compete and score points regularly without falling back on the endless second man plays and fullback sweeps that have become the norm ever since Wayne Bennett introduced them in the mid-2000s.

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Dugan’s ball-playing has always been a complementary element of his game and should be treated as such. The Dragons already look more effective when they discard the second man patterns and they should lean on other offensive formations in 2016.

Centre is an exceedingly difficult position at which to defend, maybe the toughest on the field, and it can even be a struggle for wingers who switch one spot in. For someone like Dugan, who has rarely if ever defended in the line for his entire NRL career, such a switch would be even more difficult.

In his brief switch to centre in 2014, Dugan’s defence was a hit and miss proposition — his debut match against Souths was a nightmare, with the Rabbitohs managing to exploit his inexperience at nearly every turn.

He did better as he gained more experience and managed to keep Greg Inglis at bay in Origin II of that year, but it would still be a very steep learning curve for Dugan.

He’s played 17 top-flight matches in the front line of defence and recorded at least one missed tackle in all of them.

In fact, in Origin III in 2014, where Dugan won players’ player, he recorded five misses and two ineffective tackles. Similarly, he averaged three missed tackles a game in his 12 club matches at centre.

Verdict

Dugan has the athletic ability to make it as a centre and a move to that position would accentuate his strong ball-running while obscuring his struggles as a ballplayer.

However, given the Dragons’ new-found depth in the outside backs as well as their lack of top-class options at fullback and Dugan’s strength as a kick returner, the Red V will be more effective and more dangerous in attack if they leave the incumbent Blues No. 1 in his regular position.