GOLD Coast may have sounded the death knell on the Dragons finals hopes with a 32-12 win, their biggest of the season, at UOW Jubilee Oval on Friday night.
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A week after being humbled 36-6 by a previously out of form Manly out-of-form Manly outfit, the Dragons looked off the pace from the start, trailing 14-6 at the break and conceding three more tries in the second to surrender eighth spot to the Titans.
They now face an uphill battle to fight their way back into the eight by season’s end with a dismal for and against and matches against the Bulldogs, Broncos and Sharks in the next month.
They’ll have to win five of their next six games to be assured of a finals berth and will have to do it for the most part without Josh Dugan, who underwent surgery on a broken jaw on Friday.
Benji Marshall also remains a week to week proposition with a chronic hamstring complaint that kept him out of what would’ve been his 250th first grade game but coach Paul McGregor refused to use either absence as an excuse.
“He had a scan and there was no tear there so it was more neural than anything else,” McGregor said of Marshall.
“He was pretty confident to play but the medical staff thought it was the right thing to do to miss this week so he should be good for next week.
“We can use that as an excuse but we won’t. They’re obviously two very important parts of our footy team but I’m not .going to use that as an excuse tonight.
“It was definitely disappointing considering it would have put us four clear of the Gold Coast who were on our heels there and we were in the eight. We’re out of the eight now so we’ve got some work to do.
“We regrouped at halftime with possession so much [Gold Coast’s] way we just needed work hard for that first 15 minutes of the second half and then in the first set they scored off the kick.
“From there the boys just dropped their heads a bit. It took the wind out of them
“It is a ruthless competition and that’s why tonight was so important. When you’re playing in front of a home crowd you need a better performance than that and it definitely wasn’t up to standard.”
The first half got off to a disastrous start with Marshall’s replacement Josh McCrone putting a kick out on the full in the opening set of the match.
It was one just two sets inside the first fifteen minutes for the hosts and the visitors were quick to make them play with Nene McDonald soaring high above the pack to bring down a Tyrone Roberts kick and plant the first try of the match in just the fourth minute.
The Titans extended their lead five minutes later when Chris McQueen carried some flimsy defence across the line for an 8-0 buffer and the visitors looked to be doing it easy.
The Dragons fought there way back into the clash with some determined defence forcing McDonald back into his own in-goal. Kurt Mann wrestled his way over on the left flank from the ensuing dropout with Widdop’s sideline conversion cutting the margin to 8-6.
Gold Coast pushed the lead out to beyond a converted try when Josh Hoffman beat several defenders before finding Nathan Peats in support for the Titans third try 12 minutes before the break.
Konrad Hurrel put an exclamation point on the victory when he burst through some paper-thin defence to break into the clear and find Anthony Don for their sixth four-pointer.
Mann’s second try on the fulltime proved little consolation fro the Red V faithful who had already started filing out of the ground.