The Dragons’ Jersey Flegg outfit went down to the Sharks 30-18 in their local derby clash at WIN Stadium on Saturday afternoon.
The visiting side jumped out to an 18-0 advantage before the Dragons ignited a furious fightback courtesy of tries to second row duo Jarrah Treweek and Drew Langdon.
Shane Millard’s men had an opportunity late to snatch the result, but their comeback attempt ran out of steam as the Sharks held on to nab the competition points.
Match: Dragons v Sharks
Round 10 -
home Team
Dragons
8th Position
away Team
Sharks
2nd Position
Venue: WIN Stadium, Wollongong
The first points of the afternoon belonged to Cronulla who set up camp in the hosts’ end early and were eventually rewarded with Lajuan Vito steaming through a hole down the right-hand corridor to dive over and make it 6-0.
The visitors marched down the field to make it two tries in as many sets with an attacking kick falling fortuitously into the arms of Dylan Coutts who handed it off to his captain Samuel McCulloch to score.
They found a third a little over a quarter of the way in with Felix Faatili proving too powerful as he crashed over to the left of the sticks to grow their edge out to 18-0.
The Dragons appeared to have stopped the bleeding just shy of the half-hour mark through Isaiah Fagalilo with the official moving to award the try only to be overruled by the sideline official who picked up a double movement in the grounding attempt.
David Afu went within inches again for the Red V moments later only to lose the ball short of the chalk.
The Sharks went close to extending their lead through Ben Peni prior to the break only for the bustling prop to be whistled for a double movement.
The Dragons went down the other end and capitalised with Treweek – on return from a knee injury – powering his way over the stripe for his fourth try of the season with Kade Reed knocking over the extras to bring it back to 18-6.
Langdon joined his second-row partner in the try-scorers column just moments later muscling his way to the try-line to the right of the uprights to cut the deficit down to six as the Red V ended the opening forty on a much-needed tear.
The Sharks lost centre Nikora Williams to a HIA early in the second stanza forcing them into a re-shuffle.
It was his centre partner Prestyn Laine-Sietu however who found the contest’s next points in the southeastern corner to grow their buffer back out to a dozen.
The Dragons found a timely response with 15 minutes left on the clock through five-eighth Tyler Peckham-Harris who skied to reel in an attacking kick off the boot of halves partner Reed and slam the ball down to the left of the goalposts.
Reed’s subsequent conversion brought the scoreline back to 24-18 entering the home stretch.
Charlie Heidke came up with a phenomenal play the Dragons’ next set hounding a well-placed Reed kick to drag Sharks fullback Adrian Sandy over the sideline to earn his side another set in good ball.
Saifiti Junior Saifiti went close to scoring on Jersey Flegg debut off it but was held up in the northwestern corner as the Sharks maintained their lead.
The visitors managed to ice it however in the final stages with Sandy shoving his way through the defence and over.
