The Dragons produced their best performance of 2026 to down the Sharks 24-16 in their Indigenous Round clash at St George Venues Jubilee Stadium on Sunday afternoon.
Winger Setu Tu rebounded from a midweek demotion to the bench, coming on for the injured Mat Feagai to ice the game with a late individual try.
The Samoan flyer had been denied a try moments earlier by mere millimetres, but burst through Mawene Hiroti from a scrum win to send the home crowd into raptures.
Match: Dragons v Sharks
Round 23 -
home Team
Dragons
17th Position
away Team
Sharks
4th Position
Venue: St George Venues Jubilee Stadium, Kogarah
Cronulla got on the board first with Sione Katoa strolling over in the northeastern corner off a Nicho Hynes cut-out to make it 4-0.
The Dragons were able to wrestle back some ascendancy and found points off it with Lyhkan King-Togia weighting a perfect grubber for a chasing Valentine Holmes. The veteran centre converted his own try to put the home side on top.
The Red V managed to improve their lead 25 minutes in off the back of a Jacob Liddle break with Kyle Flanagan putting up a chip in which Hamish Stewart found a way to climb above two Sharks, take it in, and get the ball to ground.
Soon after the Dragons lost Feagai to a back injury seeing Tu inserted into the action before Billy Burns went over for the Sharks next to the sticks to cut their deficit back to two.
The second forty started in strong fashion for the Red V with Stewart poking his nose through on a fifth-tackle raid and fashioning a brilliant one-handed offload to Tyrell Sloan who tiptoed down the western touchline to score and make it 16-10.
Helped by a yardage penalty, Cronulla nabbed a needed try moments later with Braydon Trindall manufacturing an offload for Jesse Ramien who picked it up off his bootlaces to lock things up.
The Sharks were penalised an hour in for illegally disrupting a chasing Holmes as he hounded a Flanagan grubber. The former knocked over a penalty goal as a result of it to put the home side back ahead by two at 18-16.
Jesse Ramien left the field for the Sharks entering the final 15 minutes with an apparent upper body issue pushing Briton Nikora to right centre.
NRL Press Conference: Indigenous Round vs. Sharks
Addin Fonua-Blake was binned for a high shot on Stewart with 12-and-a-half minutes to play.
Tu looked to have scored a potential match-sealer with five minutes remaining but was ruled by video officials to have gone into touch simultaneously to grounding the ball.
As fate would have it, he would provide the match winner with three minutes to go.
Ryan Couchman played 80 minutes, notching up an incredible 67 tackles and 148 metres while captain Clint Gutherson ran for 201 metres.
NRL Match Highlights: Indigenous Round vs. Sharks
