Given the Dragons' much-publicised salary cap problems, there has been little coach Paul McGregor could do to improve his playing roster for the coming season, so he has worked on improving those within it.

While it has been well documented that St George Illawarra have lost star winger, Brett Morris, centre Gerard Beale, utility Kyle Stanley, fullback Adam Quinlan and prop Jack Stockwell, little has been made of the young talent coming through the junior ranks - such as teenage centre Euan Aitken, who will start in Saturday night's Charity Shield clash with South Sydney - and the greater depth across the squad.

Hooker Heath L'Estrange, centre Dane Nielsen, prop George Rose, and halves Kris Keating and Beau Henry all have plenty of first grade experience but are understood to be costing the Dragons just $400,000 between them this season.

Besides Nielsen, it remains to be seen how many NRL games they each play, but L'Estrange will keep the pressure on hooker Mitch Rein to perform and Rose is likely to be used off the bench, while Beale and Keating provide cover for star halves Benji Marshall and Gareth Widdop.

How St George Illawarra fare this season will largely depend on the form of Marshall, Widdop and other established stars, such as fullback Josh Dugan, lock Trent Merrin, winger Jason Nightingale and second-rowers Joel Thompson and Tyson Frizzell, but McGregor is expecting improvement across the team and also hoping for the emergence of youngsters like Aitken, prop Addin Fonua-Blake and halves Drew Hutchinson and Shannon Crook.

All four have been promoted from last year's under 20s to the Dragons full-time squad and Aitken will be the first to get his chance in the top grade after being rewarded for his efforts at training, in which he was among the best in many of the team's fitness and strength testing.

"He came back to training in the first session of the pre-season and won our yo-yo test, which is a good indication he has got good endurance," McGregor said. "He jumped in the gym and as a 19-year-old kid is very strong, he is keen to learn, he takes information very well, he is an educated kid and they are the type of guys you want to coach.

"He has done everything right, he hasn't missed any work and he deserves the opportunity in the Charity Shield. It is a big jump to play round one from the under 20s but he was the leading tackle breaker in the under 20s, and I think he was first or second in metres gained from carries, so he has certainly got the athleticism to play first grade."

Despite Aitken making an impression in the gym, most of the conditioning work undertaken by St George Illawarra players this year has been with a ball and they have trained without one for just 80 minutes out of 480 minutes per week - a significant increase from recent seasons on the amount of training they have done with the ball.

After finding when he took over as coach mid-season last year that some players could only play on the left or right side of the field, McGregor has also focused heavily on versatility among his squad.

"I think everyone is picking us to finish second last but I am very comfortable with the group I have got to go forward into the future and I think we might surprise a few people," McGregor said.

"Everyone who plays the game wants to make the top eight and we are no different, so we will be striving to do that, and we are capable of doing that.

"The good thing with this squad is that we can go deep and we have got versatility, we can play edge back-rowers in the middle, we have got a lot of middle and we didn't just train with guys at right and left centre or left and right halves, we switched around and we spent a lot of time multi-skilling guys on both sides of the park.

"We have made them feel very uncomfortable at training so they get really prepared to play and you might see a bit of switching in games, where guys might starrt somewhere and finish somewhere else."