Dragons hammer Panthers in season-opener

A limp finish to the 2016 season and a lacklustre showing in the Charity Shield two weeks ago saw the Dragons and coach Paul McGregor come into the match under pressure despite it being just the season-opener.

Much of the criticism has centred on the club’s attack but the Dragons showed promises about improvements with the football weren’t just hollow words, racking up their biggest score since round 21 of 2015.

McGregor has made no secret of the fact he intends to play a forwards-led power game in attack in 2017 and Saturday saw the early fruits of that new mentality with Joel Thompson scoring a first half double and finishing with a hat-trick while Jack de Belin and Cameron McInnes also crossed.

Gareth Widdop was also outstanding with two tries and seven goals to equal Jamie Soward and Amos Roberts’ club record mark of 22 points in a game.

McGregor admitted he couldn’t have predicted the scoreline but was confident his side could get off to a winning start at home.

“It was nice with the scoreline, I didn’t predict that, but I certainly thought we were in with a fight against a team that are favourites to win the comp,” McGregor said.

“We needed a bit of a boot up the backside after the Charity Shield, that was a blessing. We didn’t game plan for it, we went into it under some fatigue from our training so we weren’t too worried about it but we created some things that day that we saw and wanted to work on a little bit harder.

“Our plan from our performance staff was always about round one. The boys have worked really hard over the last 16 weeks and some of them have been kicked a bit in that period so it’s good to see them pull together and play like that.

“We’ve been working on playing each play instead of playing the set out. We were too rigid in what we did last year and I think the boys went out there and had plenty of intent in what they did.

“I said to the boys after the game that I’ve got a lot of confidence in our playing group and I want them to value themselves very highly because not many people are out there and we’re enjoying that. Let everyone keep kicking.”

Penrith have been widely tipped as genuine premiership contenders and seen by many as the surest bet of round one but were comprehensively outplayed in the opening stanza with young halves Nathan Cleary and Te Maire Martin looking out of sorts.

Joel Thompson crossed from close range in just the fourth minute from a Cameron McInnes short-ball for a 6-0 lead and the margin swelled to 12 when he crossed for his second 10 minutes later.

With precious little football for most of the opening stanza the Panthers managed to hit back when Martin caught the Dragons short on a blindside with Waqa Blake providing ant athletic finish to plant the ball inches inside the chalk.

Peter Wallace’s attempted conversion was waved away, leaving the score at 12-4 10 minutes before the break

Jack de Belin did it all himself just three minutes before the break, shrugging off three defenders to plant the ball under the posts and, with Widdop adding the extras, take a 14-point cushion into halftime.

The interval did little to halt the Dragons momentum with Widdop scoring six minutes after the resumption when he won the race to a deft banana kick from McCrone and added the extras to see the lad balloon to 24-4.

The Panthers out a dent in the deficit when Tyrone Peachey crossed minutes later with Cleary’s conversion cutting the margin to 10 before a piece of individual kick-and-chase brilliance from Josh Dugan saw McInnes cross and re-take momentum for the hosts.

Widdop’s second with 21 minutes remaining put the result to bed before Thompson finished off his hat-trick at the Dragons cruised past the 40-point mark.