RUGBY LEAGUE
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Fullback Josh Dugan believes his blatant professional foul against Canberra in round three has become a significant turning point in the Dragons' season.
The Dragons travelled to Canberra on the back of two straight losses to start the season and produced an abysmal opening to the game to trail the Raiders 18-0 after just 19 minutes.
It looked as if Dugan's 100th NRL game at his former home would be one to forget when he was dispatched to the sin-bin in the 54th minute with the match on a knife-edge at 18-12 to the Raiders.
However, the Dragons stormed home with two tries in the final six minutes to snatch an unlikely victory.
More telling, they've conceded just one try in the 186 minutes since Dugan was binned.
Dugan still finds it difficult to determine what actually changed but he said the incident proved a line in the sand moment for his side.
"We can't really pinpoint [what changed]," Dugan said. "I guess me being sin-binned sort of triggered them.
"It was probably the longest 10 minutes of my career. I was asking 'how long?' every minute until I was back out there.
"It was a make or break situation where they could've put another 20 on us or we could defend our butts off and stay in the game.
"And it showed the attitude changed there in defence and we really pride ourselves on that now.
"There was more urgency ... we had the feeling that we could win the game and since then I haven't felt like we've been in a 'losing' position."
From a 0-2 start to the year, the Dragons are heavily favoured to notch their fourth straight win - a feat they haven't achieved since 2011 - against a Bulldogs side missing many big names on Sunday.