Aired:
07-04-13
Overview:
Flash in the pan? Or flash is the plan? That’s what Dragons fans are asking following St George Illawarra’s impressive and expansive season-breakthrough victory over well-performed Cronulla last week.
The object of much derision due to their inability to get across the try line through the first three weeks of the 2013 premiership, Steve Price’s charges fired up their previously pop-gun attack to inflict a polished four-tries-to-two defeat upon a Cronulla side that entered the clash leading all-comers for field position with a benchmark 1491 metres each week and having missed just the fourth-fewest tackles in the league.
With halves Nathan Fien and Jamie Soward finally finding some fluency on different edges of the field and a second-phase game that yielded 16 offloads, the Red V were able to punch out four line-breaks to totally dominate their Shire opponents.
It was welcome reward for the players and coaching staff after some disciplined and dedicated – if fruitless – efforts over the first three weeks. They showed that when their attack clicks they still have enough strike power to trouble the better teams; whether or not they can do it often enough to pose a premiership threat is a different matter altogether.
Meanwhile Newcastle got the job done against the Raiders at home last Sunday, their 28-12 win coming just six days after a rousing 34-6 win over the Cowboys in Round 3. They’ve now scored 62 points and conceded just 18 since being whitewashed 32-nil by Manly in Round 2 and look one of the better units in the league, with a disciplined, hard-running forward pack – something that’s been sadly lacking in recent seasons – strong and fast outside backs and a halves combination in Tyrone Roberts and Jarrod Mullen that have added more try assists than any team other than Melbourne’s Cooper Cronk and Gareth Widdop (six to the Storm pair’s seven).
In fact, the form from Roberts and Mullen has presented coach Wayne Bennett with the conundrum of what to do with captain Kurt Gidley – for the second week running Gidley has been named at hooker, in an unchanged line-up from the clash with the Raiders that also sees Timana Tahu added as 18th man.
Not surprisingly Dragons coach Steve Price has stuck solid with the starting 13 that got the job done last week; their only squad changes see Leeson Ah Mau rejoin the 17 in place of the injured Cameron King (knee), while Daniel Vidot joins former Under-20s Player of the Year Jack De Belin to round out an extended interchange that numbers six at this stage.
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