Coming down from the frantic ending to their round 1 win, St George Illawarra and their army traveled to ANZ Stadium to face one of their largest rivalries, Canterbury Bankstown. Unfortunately the contest didn’t live up to the standard set last weekend.
The Dragons looked flat from the get go, setting the trend after early penalties for not playing the ball correctly and knock ons. Canterbury were swift to make St George pay with Josh Morris scoring the first of his hat-trick.
The tide rolled on when after another infringement for not playing the ball correctly, Josh Morris dummied and strolled over for his second, the Bulldogs fan delirious with glee while Dragons fans sunk lower in their seats.
After 28 minutes though, there was something to get the Dragon Army in full voice again, Brett Morris and Kyle Stanley combined for the latter to cross for what would turn out be the Dragons only points of the evening, thanks to Soward’s missed conversion.
Once the status quo had resumed, the Dragons knocked on once again to give Josh Morris his hat-trick before halftime and crush the spirits of Dragons fans in the stands with the scoreboard reading 18-4 to the home team.
St George came out of halftime with some venom, looking like they could claw back the deficit but the resistance lasted ten minutes with the story repeating; a silly penalty allowed Canterbury into attacking position and they capitalised, Bryson Goodwin getting his name on the score sheet.
The Dragons resistance quelled, Canterbury looked to put an exclamation mark on their victory which they last tasted in 2008 and it came in the 74th minute when Greg Eastwood crashed through to put the cherry on top, 30 points to 4.
Hopefully the Dragons can put this shambolic performance behind them when they head back to their spiritual home Kogarah Jubilee to face the West Tigers and maybe more importantly turncoat Tim Moltzen.
