By Dan Walsh
As Anthony Griffin fights for his career, his Dragons side have produced a slew of coach-killing moments in a critical loss to Canberra that went down to the last second.
St George Illawarra’s board meets this week to consider coaching candidates for next season, having told Griffin that he doesn’t need to reapply for the gig because his team’s results effectively do that.
As has been the case throughout his tenure, the Dragons couldn’t be accused of phoning it in. They pressed the Raiders’ line right until full-time in the hope of sending a 20-14 loss to extra time. Credit to Canberra, they hung tough and hung on.
But a clutch of dumbfounding Dragons penalties and lazy line defence against a 12-man attack made for another tense loss. A win was in the offing for St George Illawarra, if only they could get out of their own way.
“We just did enough to get beat,” Griffin lamented, offering his usual dead bat to the impact of speculation on his future.
“We were really brave for long periods of the game but we just lost control of it early in the second half. The way they got their two tries, it went against the defensive effort we came up with all day”.
Ben Hunt reacts during the Dragons’ eventful six-point loss to Canberra.Credit: Getty
Both sides had head-scratching moments aplenty, not least returning Raiders star Jack Wighton with a late intercept pass that Tautau Moga stole to give the Dragons one last crack.
Perhaps it just was never going to be the Dragons’ day when they cost themselves an interchange before kick-off by sending No.14 Moses Mbye out at hooker despite Jacob Liddle being named to start the game.
With a 4-0 lead after an error-strewn first half from both sides, Jack de Belin started the rot by landing himself on report with a bizarre leg lift on Tom Starling when he was already held by two defenders.
Starling was upended beyond the horizontal and from the very next set Seb Kris strolled through thanks to a glut of numbers down the right edge.
Jack Wighton threw a late intercept to keep the Dragons in the game until the very end.Credit: Getty
Jack Bird followed up a minute later with a late hit on Jamal Fogarty as he kicked high, Jarrod Croker duly adding the penalty goal for an 8-4 lead.
Nick Cotric matched that play by taking Bird out when he pursued a Dragons bomb soon after. Cotric let the ball bounce before getting himself sin-binned for tackling Bird without possession, his day done with a hamstring injury aggravated in the process.
Mat Feagai duly plunged over out wide when the Dragons exploited the extra man advantage.
But when the Raiders were down to 12 players and found themselves at the other end, St George Illawarra’s line speed went out the window on their own tryline.
Bird told his teammates exactly that as they stood flat-footed while Matt Timoko scrambled his way over from dummy-half.
“We’re just having little lapses and at really crucial times, we’re giving away penalties at the wrong time,” captain Ben Hunt said. “We’re just costing ourselves.”
Leading 14-10 in the 75th minute, the Dragons were still in it up to their eyeballs when Zane Musgrove went to the line. Hudson Young was third man into the tackle — which to some eyes seemed completed — when he made the call to his teammates to drop off.
The back-rower promptly stripped the ball from Musgrove, saw nothing but daylight and sprinted 80 metres for what proved the match-winner, despite Moga’s own runaway effort.
Young endured a nervous few final moments when he was sin-binned for a professional foul defending his own line in the 80th minute, watching from the sideline as his teammates held out one last Dragons raid.
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