Wayne Bennett banked his first competition points as St George Illawarra coach before declaring the Dragons were on the right track despite a scratchy 16-10 NRL win over Gold Coast on Saturday night.

Much as they did in last week’s golden point loss to Melbourne, the Dragons relied on their defence to keep them in the contest with their attacking play leaving plenty to be desired at WIN Stadium.

In the end they relied on a pair of deft Jamie Soward kicks to get over a sluggish Gold Coast side, the Titans succumbing to a relentless red and white defensive blanket and host of touch and go refereeing calls which left the men in blue scratching their heads.

The Dragons however were not to be denied as they finally got the Bennett era off the ground, Soward setting up four pointers for Neville Costigan and Jason Nightingale to turn a slender 6-4 half-time advantage into a comfortable 16-4 lead.

William Zillman scored in the final minute for the Titans to add some respectability to the scoreboard.

Despite the win, Bennett admitted his side still had plenty of work to do.

“Attack-wise I think we can can all see we’re struggling a bit there, but I expected that, it’s not something I hadn’t budgeted for,” Bennett said.

“We’re patchy, I think that’s pretty obvious. But I’m not worried about it, it will come, it will come.”

Asked what was the basis for his confidence, Bennett said:

“Because I know what I’m doing.”

For much of the game, the Dragons didn’t look like they knew what they were doing with players running into each other and passes hitting the ground time and again.

Thankfully for the Dragons the Titans struggles were a lot worse as they slumped to five losses in as many games against the Dragons since coming into the competition in 2007.

Besides Zillman’s last minute effort, their only other points came from a piece of Scott Prince individual brilliance as he rushed out of the defensive line to toe through a floating Ben Hornby pass, and then won the race to the line after just four minutes.

The Titans claimed they weren’t allowed to play any football from then on due to the slowness of the ruck, while three crucial forward pass rulings – including one which denied Mark Minichiello a try on the half hour – also went against the visitors.

“It’s just frustrating … all the 50-50 calls seemed to go one way,” Prince said.

“What can you do?

“I just thought the two referee system was there to speed up the play the balls, but tonight it seemed to go one way, it was pretty obvious which way it was going.”

© AAP 2012

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