The Dragons went down to the Warriors 30-12 at a wet St George Venues Jubilee Stadium on Saturday night.
Alofiana Khan-Pereira, Te Maire Martin, and Dallin Watene-Zelezniak all secured try doubles for the visiting side as they raced towards their sixth win in a row.
It proved a frustrating continuation of the past few months for the Red V who remained in the arm wrestle, but ultimately paid for their poor handling.
Dean Young lamented the side’s errors, but praised the Dragons faithful who showed out despite the conditions.
“We started the game pretty good,” Young said.
“We went six-from-six, started well. From that point, I think we were at 61 per cent after that… We’re in a tough spot. We appreciate all the fans turning up tonight with where we’re sitting on the ladder and to have so many of those fans turn up, pay their hard earned, sit in the pouring rain, we appreciate it.”
Te Maire Martin was placed on report for a late shot on his opposite number Kyle Flanagan in the early stages gifting the Dragons an opportunity on the attack.
The hosts struck off it through Setu Tu who took in a skilful Hamish Stewart offload and won the race to the corner. Valentine Holmes nailed the conversion from the right-hand touchline to make it 6-0.
Roger Tuivasa-Sheck lasted less than 10 minutes in his return from injury seeing Eddie Ieremia-Toeava come onto the field.
It took little time for the visitors to hit back with a Dragons knock-on handing Alofiana Khan-Pereira a gift four-pointer.
A slew of set restarts compounded by a penalty saw the Warriors march straight back onto the attack with Martin dummying and slipping his way to the stripe as they took their first lead of the evening.
Hayden Buchanan left the contest with a shoulder issue off the back of it seeing Clint Gutherson shift into the centres and Tyrell Sloan come onto the field at fullback.
The Warriors lost James Fisher-Harris and Eddie Ieremia-Toeava for the remainder of the first half to HIAs.
The visitors found another prior to the break with Dallin Watene-Zelezniak diving over in the northeastern corner to extend their edge beyond a converted try heading into the break.
Martin notched his second for the Warriors early in the second half in near-identical fashion as their advantage ballooned out to 14.
Watene-Zelezniak claimed another for the visitors shortly after but was ruled by video officials to have lost the ball in the grounding attempt.
Khan-Pereira joined Martin in the doubles column on the other side of the hour-mark off a nice Chanel Harris-Tavita cut-out to make it 24-6.
NRL Match Highlights: Round 12 vs. Warriors
The Dragons were able to stop the bleeding via Christian Tuipulotu who slid over in the left-hand corner after Luciano Leilua sent Valentine Holmes into space. Holmes nailed the conversion again from the touchline to cut the deficit back to a dozen.
A late Watene-Zelezniak intercept sealed the result however as the Warriors came away from Kogarah with another pair of competition points.
NRL Press Conference: Round 12 vs. Warriors
