The St George Illawarra Dragons have run out winners by ten points over the Newcastle Knights at McDonald Jones Stadium in their final tune-up for the finals.
While the game was scrappy, stop-start and not of the highest quality, the Dragons will take solace in the fact they were able to defend their line well under pressure at times and come back from an eight-point halftime deficit.
It was the Dragons who opened the scoring with a penalty goal, but that was their last moment of joy in the first half, as some dubious decisions allowed the Knights to go up by eight.
Tries to Ken Sio and Shaun Kenny-Dowall both cleared by the bunker, while one was denied for debutant Zac Lomax at the other end, would have been enough to frustrate all fans of the Red V.
The Knights put themselves in a position to dominate the game up until halftime though and were rewarded richly for their hard work.
But with only 35 per cent possession during the first half, the visitors did a solid job to only be eight points behind. Given those stats though, Newcastle should have been further in front and already having seven errors to their name was something which has trended across their somewhat frustrating season.
The second half got underway with the Dragons breaking a 135-minute try-scoring brought with Jeremy Latimore crashing over under the sticks.
Nene McDonald and Matt Dufty would be the next to score tries, both on long range efforts, before Ken Sio scores for the Knights, bringing them back into the contest during the finals ten minutes.
It wouldn’t matter though as Jordan Pereira scored on the bell, extending the lead to ten and making it just that little bit harder for the Broncos to win a home final tomorrow against Manly, where they will need to win by at least 24 points to avoid a trip to Sydney.
Who are the hardest working big men in the NRL?
1. Manu is not No.1 at Roosters Everyone knows Joey Manu is a really good fullback. He’s probably in the top five in the…
Kalyn Ponga showed he was tough but the Knights didn’t display too much intelligence in allowing him to remain on the field when he…
Newcastle have taken the two points over St George Illawarra at McDonald Jones Stadium, edging the Dragons 30-10 on a night when the weather…
Playing talent is always important, yet creating a winning culture even more so.
The life of an NRL coach is portrayed as a cut-throat occupation where they could get the punt at any given moment. In reality,…
