Dragons, Broncos look to continue impressive early-season form

Two of the NRL’s most in-form teams will meet this Friday night when the St George Illawarra Dragons welcome the Brisbane Broncos to Kogarah Oval for the first time since 2007.

Both sides didn’t start the season well, with the Dragons losing their first two matches without firing a shot in attack while the Broncos, coached by Wayne Bennett for the first time since 2008, were thrashed at home 36-6 by reigning premiers South Sydney.

The Dragons appeared set for a third straight loss when they trailed the Canberra Raiders 18-0 in Round 3, but would miraculously turn things around to eventually win 22-20 for only their second win in the nation’s capital since 2000.

In the lead-up to that match a Twitter campaign calling for the sacking of long-serving CEO Peter Doust dominated the headlines, but the Dragons have since then won four straight matches, the most recent of which was an impressive 31-6 win over a depleted Bulldogs side.

They are now in third place on the NRL ladder.

It is their best start to a season since 2011 and their defence has been rock solid throughout their four-match winning streak, conceding just three tries in the last 280 minutes of football. It was in this category where they excelled most in 2010 as they won the premiership in their second (of three) years under Wayne Bennett.

Bennett was brought to the Dragons in 2009 after it was deemed that then-coach Nathan Brown was incapable of delivering the Dragons a premiership.

During Brown’s tenure, the club fielded representative players such as Trent Barrett, Shaun Timmins, Jason Ryles, Luke Bailey and to a lesser extent, Michael Ennis – who spent one season at the club in 2005.

It was one of the tough decisions that Peter Doust had to make in order to deliver success to the club and it was vindicated with the 2010 premiership.

The Brisbane Broncos’ lack of success since their most recent premiership in 2006 – also coached by Bennett – was the reason why the club made the tough call to sack Anthony Griffin at the end of last season. Who did they call?

Wayne Bennett of course.

Upon returning to Red Hill, Bennett made the tough calls to release Ben Barba and Martin Kennedy, two players who arrived at the club in 2014 with high expectations but failed to live up to their price tags.

His first match as Broncos coach since 2008 didn’t go down well, with the Broncos thrashed by South Sydney 36-6 in the opening match of the season. But since then the Broncos have won five matches in a row to shoot to the top of the ladder at the end of Round 6.

Last week the club defeated the Sydney Roosters at home for the first time since 2003, but the reason for the long gap was because the Chooks haven’t been regularly fixtured to play in Brisbane very frequently in that period.

That being said, last Friday night’s match was just the fifth time since Suncorp Stadium’s redevelopment in 2003 that the Broncos and Roosters had met at the ground.

Ben Hunt won the game for the Broncos in golden point extra time, scoring the match-winning try in the first period of extra time after breaking the tackle of James Maloney on the halfway line.

The Broncos will enter Friday night’s showdown against the Dragons at Kogarah Oval having won their last eight matches against the Red V, after at one stage losing eight in a row between 2005 and 2009.

However, it will be the first time since 2007 that the Broncos have played at the ground. On that occasion, they suffered an 11-4 loss to a young Dragons side whose mid-season recruit Jamie Soward was debuting for the club after crossing from the Sydney Roosters in search of more first grade opportunities.

With the Broncos and Dragons sitting first and third on the ladder respectively, and both with the same points differential (+22), the winner of this match will claim provisional top spot on the ladder with the Melbourne Storm (+43) and South Sydney Rabbitohs (+23) still to play their respective Round 7 matches against the Roosters and Sharks.

After both clubs started the season poorly with patchy performances in the opening two rounds, both have hit top form and this Friday night’s match will be compelling viewing for fans of either club.

Such is the interest in this match that it will be televised live into both Sydney and Brisbane on Channel Nine ahead of the grudge match between the Bulldogs and Sea Eagles at ANZ Stadium that same night.