Dragons beat Eels 14-12 in NRL
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A late try from centre Kyle Stanley gave St George Illawarra a hard fought 14-12 win over a gallant Parramatta side at Kogarah, breaking the Dragons’ three-game NRL losing streak.
The desperate Dragons kept the ball alive to allow the powerful centre to crash over on the right edge, taking a couple of Eels across the line with him.
Stanley had also opened his team’s scoring with a try in the 20th minute.
But home fans were made to sweat right to the end with winger Daniel Vidot defusing a towering Jarryd Hayne bomb near his own goal-line seconds before the fulltime siren.
The Dragons trailed 12-4 at halftime with the Eels on track to win just their second game of the season.
Against the run of the play six minutes into the second half the Dragons hit back.
Fullback Brett Morris scored a 70m try after accepting a pass from winger Jason Nightingale, who broke some feeble right edge defence, and Jamie Soward’s conversion made it 12-10.
Parramatta started brilliantly with five-eighth Casey McGuire scoring after just two minutes from a Chris Sandow cross-field kick with Luke Burt converting to make it 6-0.
The Dragons were able to hit back on 20 minutes with Stanley crashing over in the right corner following a tap back from a leaping Vidot after a Soward cross-field kick.
But Vidot went from hero to villain a few minutes later when he dropped the ball inside the 30 metres and the Eels made them pay.
Back-rower Matthew Ryan charged onto a perfect Sandow short ball and beat three Dragons to score next to the posts as the visitors took a 12-4 lead with Luke Burt’s easy conversion.
McGuire’s season looks over after he suffered a suspected torn pectoral muscle in the 20th minute.
© AAP 2013The Crowd Says (8) | Page 1 of Comments
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May 27th 2012 @ 10:20am
Bearfax said | May 27th 2012 @ 10:20am | Report comment
Eels cant take a trick this year….except when they play Manly that is …… bah humbug. How many more losses before the coach looks elsewhere for employment? Maybe the Management think he is still building a culture…but I suspect its of the viral kind because the Eels are looking a very pale yellow and blue. Get another coach in quickly Eels, so that you have something to build on for 2013….or are they going for the big double of wooden spoons. We need a strong Eels (and Panthers for that matter) out there to counter that Oz Rules incursion.
May 27th 2012 @ 12:02pm
Ronnie the Eel said | May 27th 2012 @ 12:02pm | Report comment
partly well said Bearfax. The Eels were a bit hard done by with that blatant shepherd near the end of the game off the Hayne bomb. As Roy Masters said on tele. this morning, the incident would have probably drawn a penalty if it occurred earlier as the ref. may have been worried about sending the match into golden point on the back of such a penalty. I was a bit dumbfounded when the Eels sacked Daniel Anderson two years after getting them to a grand final for the first time in over 20 years! They only just missed the 8 the next year and then they sack him!
As for Kearney, it is hard to say. He has credentials as he is the current national New Zealand coach. But having said that it was only by the skin of our teeth we missed out on the wooden spoon last season and I read in an article the other day that this is the worst start to a season the Eels have had in 52 years! It has a lot to do with the players, but also a coach can make a hugh difference as well – look what Bennett did for the Dragons and now Hasler is doing for the Dogs…
May 27th 2012 @ 12:16pm
Gleeso said | May 27th 2012 @ 12:16pm | Report comment
As far as building a culture the coaching staff have admitted that results do not matter at the under 20′s level. And that is showing with our u20s being as poor as firsts. Losing is the culture.
May 27th 2012 @ 12:35pm
Dean - Surry Hills said | May 27th 2012 @ 12:35pm | Report comment
The Saints are woeful at the moment. They haven’t got a clue when they get within range of their opponents tryline. Their tries are a result of poor defence and luck rather than skillful planning and execution.
It may take years for Soward to regather his ad-lib style of attack that Wayne Bennett coached out of him. He just doesn’t seem to display the confidence or self-belief that that he carried in his first few years with The Saints when he ran to the line, around the line, chipped over the line, dummied to take the line on, or any number of long cut out passes, or skillful short passes to put players through holes. Currently he just passes well before a defender gets close enough to tackle him. His sideways run at the death to set up Stanley’s try for the win against Parra last night was the first spark I’ve seen from him in a while.
Strangely enough, he is possibly now Saints best defender !!! I have not seen him miss a tackle all year, and he stops players twice his size in their tracks.
If he can simultaneously gets both parts of his game in order both the Blue, and The Green and Gold number six will be his.
May 27th 2012 @ 9:44pm
Junior said | May 27th 2012 @ 9:44pm | Report comment
Are you assuming that Jonathan Thurston drops off the planet?
May 28th 2012 @ 12:29pm
Dean - Surry Hills said | May 28th 2012 @ 12:29pm | Report comment
Nope – he’d be at half back for Australia. Darren was number 6.
May 27th 2012 @ 12:59pm
Ronnie the Eel said | May 27th 2012 @ 12:59pm | Report comment
Do you think Soward should replace Carney then as 5/8th for Game 2, origin, Dean? I was thinking he should, but have not seen much of the Dragons this year and after your description of his form, maybe not?
May 27th 2012 @ 1:08pm
Dean - Surry Hills said | May 27th 2012 @ 1:08pm | Report comment
Definitely not at the moment Ronnie.
Price has to give him permission to have a free reign for a while, and to refamiliarise himself with some of the skills he learnt as a teenager. This will bring back his confidence and self belief in the shortest amount of time.