“[The Charity Shield defeat] probably helped us in a way,” Griffin said after the win. “Everything happens for a reason and we got a lesson against Souths. We had a really good build-up the last two weeks and it showed tonight.”
After an off-season from hell with police charges,trial losses,6am hotel altercations and silly survey questions,winning wasn’t going to solve everything for St George Illawarra. But it will help solve a lot of things.
And an early season ladder helped by a needless two points for the first-round bye certainly makes things look better on the only count that matters.
It’s almost like after Thursday night’s alleged racial slur aimed at Latrell Mitchell,every other Indigenous NRL fullback decided to shine for the rest of the weekend as a nod of respect to their community leader.
First,it was Cronulla’s Will Kennedy with his maiden NRL hat-trick on Friday night. Last,it was St George Illawarra’s Tyrell Sloan,whose enduring memory of the Charity Shield a few weeks ago was crying into Mitchell’s arms after an afternoon to forget.
Sloan triggered his side’s first-half fightback with a scintillating break to set up Jacob Liddle’s maiden try for the Dragons,and then scored one of his own in the second half after a superb pass from Ben Hunt.
Earlier,Griffin looked like he might have been waiting for the St George Illawarra board to make a call on his future after one full game rather than a full season as Gold Coast breezed to a 12-2 lead.
Both tries were from nothing. AJ Brimson danced and stepped to put Alofiana Khan-Pereira clear and Sam Verrills dived over dummy-half.
But once Sloan burst into space to put Liddle over,it prompted the Dragons to pile on three tries in the last nine minutes of the first half with Mikaele Ravalawa barging over 13 seconds before the break for a four-point cushion at the break.
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“We did a load of dumb things,” Gold Coast coach Justin Holbrook said of two penalty kicks not finding touch and a short dropout not going 10 metres. “We put a lot of pressure on the middles,but I’m not here to make excuses. It’s a good learning curve for us,and we need to hit back next week.”
The Dragons’ quickly swelled in the second half when Sloan went over and Lawrie’s rare try added to a couple of Zac Lomax’s penalty goals.
All of which left Bennett and the Dragons sitting atop the NRL again.
Is this real life?
ST GEORGE ILLAWARRA DRAGONS 32 (Jacob Liddle,Ben Hunt,Mikaele Ravalawa,Tyrell Sloan,Blake Lawrie tries;Zac Lomax 6 goals)defeatedGOLD COAST TITANS 18 (Alofiana Khan-Pereira,Sam Verrills,Tino Fa’asuamaleaui tries;Tanah Boyd 3 goals) at Netstrata Jubilee Stadium. Referee:Chris Sutton. Crowd:8538.
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