St George Illawarra Dragons finals chances on life support after stunning 44-40 loss to Parramatta Eels [Video]

They will need a miracle to feature in September. It will give you brain freeze working out the permutations, but they basically need to beat Canberra next weekend, and rely on a heap of other results to go their way.

For most of the afternoon, the Red V were awful.

The game was only two plays old when St George Illawarra knocked the ball on.

It somehow got worse from there.

Even if they do sneak into the eight, on current evidence few teams already assured of finals football would be worried about the Red V.

Coach Shane Flanagan cut short his post-match press conference after three minutes and said: “I don’t want to be rude, but I’ve had enough.”

“We can’t get confused with only getting beaten by four points,” Flanagan said.

“It was a disgraceful first half. And I apologise to the …