A Lachlan Ilias field goal proved the difference as the Dragons marched to a phenomenal 31-30 win over Penrith at St. Mary’s on Saturday.<\/p>\n
Penrith struck first through David Fale who proved too powerful out in the centres muscling his way over in the left corner to make it 6-0 just five minutes in.<\/p>\n
Their hot start persisted with Asu Kepaoa winning the race to score off a Soni Luke grubber after the No.7 slipped into the backfield from inside his own half.<\/p>\n
Mavrik Geyer claimed a third for the Panthers soon after but was ruled to have bobbled it over the line handing the Dragons a relieving 20-metre restart.<\/p>\n
The Dragons fashioned a response just shy of the first quarter mark with Haele Finau using his pace to stand up his opposite and dive over in the right-hand corner.<\/p>\n
Jonah Glover slotted the conversion from just inside the right touchline to cut the deficit back to 12-6.<\/p>\n
Jesse McLean was placed on report for a high shot as Jarrah Treweek carted the ball forward off the following kick-off.<\/p>\n
A desperate Cody Ramsey effort saved a Panthers try soon after before the Dragons fullback showed some nice creativity to force a dropout down the other end of the field.<\/p>\n
Penrith extended their lead prior to half-time however with Daine Laurie taking in a short Dragons dropout and zipping through to score and make it 18-6.<\/p>\n
The Dragons found a key try as the half-time siren sounded with veteran Ben Murdoch-Masila, less than 48 hours on from appearing in the club\u2019s NRL clash on Thursday night, taking in a Lachlan Ilias inside ball and brushing past a pair of defenders to slam the ball down under the sticks.<\/p>\n
Luke Sommerton took advantage of a gap created by a Dragons injury to dive over out of dummy-half and respond for Penrith early in the second stanza.<\/p>\n
Cyrus Stanley-Traill and Campbell Rubie both left the clash for HIAs in the aftermath of the try.<\/p>\n
Zac Lipowicz stepped his way to the line to extend Penrith’s lead out to 28-12 moments later as the hosts threatened to run away with it.<\/p>\n
The Dragons crafted a needed response 55 minutes in with Jonah Glover slicing through from 65 metres out and hitting a supporting Cody Ramsey on his inside to score and cut the deficit back to 10.<\/p>\n
Penrith extended their lead back out to a dozen a little over an hour in courtesy of a Jack Cole penalty goal.<\/p>\n
Sione Fonua was placed on report and sin binned for a high shot on Ramsey several plays later to invite the Dragons back into the contest.<\/p>\n
With 10 minutes remaining, Lachlan Ilias stepped his way to the chalk for the Red V with Glover adding the extras to cut the deficit to a half-dozen.<\/p>\n
The Dragons’ continued their charge the very next set with Murdoch-Masila sending Ramsey flying down the left touchline and into space.<\/p>\n
The Dragons fullback threw a beautiful spiral back inside to a supporting Ilias who outran the Penrith chasers to dive over under the sticks and lock it up at 30-apiece.<\/p>\n
Ilias nailed a sensational one-pointer from 35 metres out the next set to miraculously earn the Dragons their first lead of the afternoon.<\/p>\n
Penrith had late chances to snatch the win and looked destined to in the final minute through Fale but an ill-timed error prevented it as the Dragons held on for a crucial win.<\/p>\n
The victory sees Willie Talau’s squad jump back into second and secure a Top 3 finish with a week to play.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Lachlan Ilias field goal proved the difference as the Dragons marched to a phenomenal 31-30 win over…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":89488,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,761,762,158,85],"class_list":["post-89487","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nrl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-national-rugby-league","tag-nationalrugbyleague","tag-nrl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89487","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=89487"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89487\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/89488"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=89487"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=89487"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=89487"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}