Dragons show off new power style in round one win

Skeptics wondered what that would look like but they got a good insight into the Dragons’ new “power game” philosophy in their massive round one win over Penrith on Saturday.

The Dragons ran in seven tries for the first time since round 21, 2015 with five four-pointers going to forwards, including a hat-trick to back-rower Joel Thompson.

Bookends Paul Vaughan and Russell Packer also had impressive, and lengthy, first stints with the Panthers pack seemingly having no answers in the middle of the park.

McGregor said post-match that dominance in the middle was part of a game plan his big-men executed to a tee.

“The boys went out there, had a lot of intent with what they did, backed their fitness and came up well,” McGregor said.

“When a back-rower [Thompson] scores three tries it’s nice but I said right through the preseason that our strength is in our forward pack.

“We've got two experienced front-rowers coming on for two experienced [ones] that come off - not many clubs do have that and it works really well. Obviously Jack de Belin’s a special player that can play long minutes – he probably could’ve played the 80.

"I'm carrying that fourth person on the bench as more of a utility this year where I shared the minutes last year. The guys are a lot fitter so I expect them to play more minutes as middles.”

De Belin – who scored a solo try to give his side a 14-point cushion at halftime – said the Dragons big men were confident they could put it over the Penrith pack. 

“We had a lot of belief,” de Belin said.

“We’ve had a great preseason and we had total confidence in our ability and you could see they really couldn’t hang with us, we were too strong, too powerful, too fast.

“To come out against a side like Penrith that have been rapped pretty hard and considered heavyweight favourites it was a great win. 

“Now we’ve got to be able to back that up. It’s a 26-round competition and you’re only as good as you last performance so that’s the challenge for us now.”

De Belin has been asked to play various roles in recent seasons, but believes the Dragons pack is as balances as he’s ever seen.

“It’s pretty good to playing in the forward pack we’ve got,” he said.

“There’s some big, strong, powerful boys and we were pretty good through the middle of the field. Playing alongside some of those big boys certainly makes my job easier.

“Mary’s given us free reign to play the way we like to play. You’ve obviously got to stick to some structure but for someone like me who likes to get my hands on  the ball an use other people, it’s good to be able to do that.

“Someone like Russell [Packer] is just going to carry the ball strong and hard so everyone knows their role and we’ve just got to play it the best we can.”