THEY’RE not set to be phased in until 2018 but, if Saturday’s Dragons-Storm clash at WIN Stadium is any thing to go by, stand-alone State of Origin fixtures can’t come quick enough.
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The Dragons kept their hopes of a top-eight finish alive with a 20-6 win over a bits and pieces Melbourne outfit that barely resembled the side that stormed to the top of the ladder on the back seven straight wins in front of a paltry crowd of 7,568 hardy souls.
With Cameron Smith and Cooper Cronk already missing on Origin duty and fellow Maroons walk-ups Billy Slater and Will Chambers sidelined through injury, Melbourne lost Cameron Munster, Blake Green and Tim Glasby before kickoff.
It saw them field one of the greenest spines in the club’s history with hooker Slade Griffin ending a 1,056-day absence from the NRL as a result of three ACL tears and Brodie Croft making his first-grade debut alongside makeshift five-eighth Tohu Harris in the halves.
The Dragons were without injured fullback Josh Dugan and star back-rower Tyson Frizell who earned a Blues call-up following Wade Graham’s suspension earlier this week in a game severely lacking in star-power.
Three days after being granted an early release by Newcastle, Tariq Sims made a strong debut for the Dragons after being injected from the interchange bench midway through the first half, running for 120 metres from 14 carries.
“I’m happy to get the two points and enjoy the last 10 minutes of footy for the first time this year because we were leading,” coach Paul McGregor said.
“We can improve but we came of a five-day turn, we came here with purpose to win the game, there was a lot of purpose in what we did.
‘Obviously they were missing the spine of their footy team so their attack was challenged a little bit but they had their full forward pack in bar Cameron Smith so forwards-wise they were at full strength.
“We had three or four tries where the last pass was knocked down so we could have had a few more points on the board but to score 20 and get a win against Melbourne is really pleasing.
“Yeah our execution could’ve been a bit better but take nothing away from it we scored 20 points and we did enough to win.”
The visitors opened the scoring with a seventh-minute penalty goal to Harris but it was the Dragons who had most of the early ball though they struggled to turn it into points in the face of some determined Melbourne defence.
They finally broke through when Gareth Widdop swooped on a deflected kick to plant the ball under the posts and convert for a 6-2 lead. Widdop extended the lead through a penalty goal seven minutes before the break in a dour first half.
Widdop’s second penalty goal six minutes after the resumption pushed the lead out to beyond a converted try before Suliasi Vunivalu soared above Kurt Mann to reel in a kick from Croft to cut the lead to to 10-6 with 21 minutes to play.
The Dragons hit back nine minutes later when Tim Lafai drew three defenders and popped a ball for Mann to pick up a try against his former club and again push the buffer out to eight.
Mitch Rein’s 71st minute four-pointer put the match to bed before Vunivalu’s second try with just seconds left on a clock brought the match to a conclusion at 20-10.
