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When is a good game a good game? By most measuring sticks, this was not a good game, but like so much of the 2023 NRL, it was a great spectacle.
The Titans nicked in the final stages, overturning a late Ben Hunt try with one of their own through Toby Sexton to win 20-18, with Tanah Boyd able to kick the goal where Zac Lomax had missed.
These are two teams that will likely finish in the lower reaches of the comp this year, and for a long part, it was obvious why. Quality, especially in attack, was lacking badly.
Defences weren’t much cop either, and all three of the first half scores were more about the team without the ball than the creative ability of those with it.
But it would be a harsh observer who complained about the entertainment on offer. The free stuff, the commitment and effort, was exceptional.
Sometimes it stepped over the line – a flashpoint in the first half should have seen men binned and Francis Molo was sat down for an early high shot – but generally, it was a display of desperation by sides who knew the value of two points.
The lead was never more than six points and the result was in doubt until the final second, with a late turnaround that snatched defeat from the jaws of victory for the Dragons.
Anyone who bought a ticket or tuned in for an Easter Sunday footy match got their money’s worth – even if the quality was not where it might have been.
Justin Holbrook paid tribute to his halves, both in attack and defence with Tanah Boyd singled out after a trysaved on Mikaele Rawalava.
“As a coach I am so happy,” said the coach. “They got six-agains and we kept tackling. That tackle Tanah Boyd came up with was huge. We get down the other end and Toby comes up with a try.”
Anthony Griffin lamented lapses in discipline that cost his side.
“I thought we scrambled and defended pretty well most of the night, but just at vital times there were penalties and points going against us that in the end that told,” said Hook.
“We just have to be better and smarter than that. We can’t sit here and complain about the rules.
“I thought in general we went about that game and finally wrestled it the way we needed it, but in the end all those little things count.”
There was a point in the first half where the Titans defended a set on their line – well the Dragons threw the ball side to side for five tackles – and Jayden Campbell recovered the kick just into the field of play.
They then went 94m in five tackles of their own, before David Fifita went close at the other end, losing the ball on the Dragons’ line.
They advanced entirely through the middle of the field, with Sami, Campbell and others attacking the ruck and making the most of the quick play the balls that followed. They won set restarts and allowed themselves to camp in opposition territory, only to lose it on the third.
It’s indicative of an issue that the Titans have faced for a year or more now: they’re great between the red zones but, largely, rubbish within them.
Their conversion rate of tackles inside 20m to points in bad, and their ability to stop other sides from breaching their line when in good ball is also bad.
For Justin Holbrook, it’s a tough one to solve. His system is more than effective in getting the Titans to where they need to be, but their lack of quality in the spine stops them from exploiting it.
The acquisitions of Kieran Foran and Sam Verrils were meant to solve that, but they’re out injured, as is AJ Brimson.
Toby Sexton and Tanah Boyd are a level down on those three, and Campbell, though exciting, is something of a one-trick pony. There’s a run-first mentality, but only one fullback averaged fewer passes per game than Campbell last year.
Eventually, they did have it. Sexton, who was deemed not good enough for first grade at the start of the year, produced a moment of magic through tired Dragons defence to win the game. Attack beat defence, eventually.
Coaches love talking about effort areas. Effort areas win you games when you aren’t playing well, and keep you in games when things aren’t going your way.
For all the critiques of the Dragons in recent times, their effort hasn’t been questioned. This is team that tends to do the effort areas even when they don’t do anything else.
If you’re a bad team, the Dragons will beat you. If you’re a good team that plays too fancifully, they’re liable to beat you too.
The problem, generally speaking, is that the Dragons will never rise higher than eighth place under their current set up and with their current coach, and while that is probably true, they’ll never drop too low either as long as they keep the effort up.
There’s a ceiling and a floor to their style of play. They’ll beat bad teams and lose to anyone half good.
The Titans, on the other hand, might be the opposite of this. It’s not to say that that they lack effort per se, but more than so many of their flaws are in the effort areas.
Mikaele Rawalava ran through on a hard straight line that nobody got their body in front of. Lomax leapt highest to claim a ball that, to be reductive, he wanted more.
St George Illawarra rarely beat themselves and collect points against those that do. In the end, however, the Titans ability to create something trumped them and pinched the points.
There’s probably an indicator to the general quality of this game that Phillip Sami was, by far, the best player on the field.
In a contest that was low on attacking impetus and high on grit, Sami was a shining light of creativity and excitement. The winger was barely first grade side at the start of the year, so suspect was his defending, but today he showed why Holbrook kept faith with him.
Sami delivered close to 250m – almost twice what anyone else managed – and a mammoth 14 tackle breaks as well as three line breaks and a superb individual try.
He’s come in for plenty of criticism over the years, but credit where it is due – he was head and shoulders above the rest today.