Dragons taken down on Gold Coast

An early Dragons yardage error laid the opening points of the contest on a platter for Titans winger Phoenix-Raine Hippi who pushed away from some cover defence to get the ball down in the right-hand corner and make it 4-0.

They were able to extend their lead not long after through Georgia Grey who found herself on the end of a savvy short side play to push their advantage beyond a converted try.

Grey found a second a little over a quarter of the way in off a Taliah Fuimaono cut-out ball as the home side cruised out to a 14-0 advantage.

In similar fashion to last week, rookie rake Tori Shipton’s presence injected some needed spark into the Dragons’ attack with the teenager making a superb line break off her first dart of the afternoon.

The Dragons found a desperately needed four-pointer on the stroke of half-time through Kasey Reh who manufactured a sensational individual effort in which she used her combination of footwork and acceleration to get to the line and bring it back to 14-4.

Charlotte Basham was placed on report for dangerous contact on Shaylee Bent early in the second half as the hosts surged back onto the attack.

Grey took in a Fuimaono cut-out to notch her third try of the afternoon off the back of it as the Gold Coast’s lead ballooned out to 18-4.

Madi Mulhall also found herself placed report the next set for a high shot with Sienna Lofipo taken from the field for a HIA as a result of it.

The Titans lodged a successful Captain’s Challenge with 20 minutes to play to overturn an on-field knock-on call which would have handed the Dragons an opportunity on the attack.

The hosts improved their lead off it with a Lauren Brown bomb resulting in a Dragons drop as Lily-Rose Kolc stormed through to ground it.

Hippi went close to nabbing her second of the afternoon off a cross-field Brown kick only for some late Bunker intervention to pick up an aerial knock-on.

The Dragons lost their Captain’s Challenge moments later in an attempt to overturn a ruck penalty as the Titans marched back into good ball.

Zali Hopkins went close to snagging a late try for the Dragons out of dummy-half but was ruled to have lost it in her pick-up attempt.