Dugan injured as Dragons finals hopes plummet

With everything to play for, the Dragons looked home when Nene Macdonald crossed in the 70^th minute only for John Sutton and Bryson Goodwin to score and draw level with three minutes left.

It left it to Souths halfback Adam Reynolds to step up and nail the match-winning goal from the sideline and perhaps sound the death knell on the Dragons finals chances.

The stunning capitulation saw the the Dragons slump to their ninth loss in their past 13 games with their past two defeats coming to sides 16 and 14 on the ladder. It could see them drop out of the top eight for the first time this season should Penrith beat the Tigers on Sunday. 

It makes next week’s clash with the Titans must-win, while they’ll now need to win at least one of two tough road clashes with the Broncos and Panthers, with the latter in round 25 looming as their finals D-day.

With everything his side had to play for, coach Paul McGregor conceded it was the most disappointing loss of the season.

“[That hurts] the most of them all,” McGregor said.

“When you’re up 10 with 10 minutes to go you don’t lose those games.

“We had a few defensive lapses through the game and we haven’t played a real solid 80 minutes for a while now.

“What’s disappointing is they scored a try and then in the next set they went 80 metres to score off that set.

“You shouldn’t let that happen at any time in a game but, in a really important period with five to go… we’ve got to be more resilient than that.

“It makes next week pretty important. Every game’s important and has been for a while. This loss is as disappointing as last week’s.

“We’ve worked so hard to get someone to come in and take it away from us but we’re doing it to ourselves at the moment.”

The loss was soured further by an ankle syndesmosis injury to Josh Dugan, who limped from the field 14 minutes before halftime and didn’t return.

He finished the match with his foot in a bucket of ice and is looking at a prolonged stint on the sidelines.

“It looks pretty bad at the minute,” McGregor said.

“It’s syndesmosis, so we’ll probably need to have a look in 48 hours when the swelling’s gone down but it doesn’t look good.”

The Dragons led early on the back of Jason Nightingale’s ninth-minute four-pointer but the Rabbitohs led 12-6 on the back of tries to Alex Johnston and Damien Cook. 

It proved short-lived, with Joel Thompson producing an athletic grab of a Josh McCrone kick to plant the ball next to the uprights, allowing Widdop to square the ledger at 12-all.

The Dragons looked certain to go-ahead minutes later through Tyson Frizell, who was tackled without the ball by Sam Burgess as he tried to reel in an off-load from Jacob Host with the line beckoning.

It earned Burgess 10 minutes in the sin-bin and proved a stay of execution with Kurt Mann crossing on the stroke of halftime.

A Reynolds penalty goal cut the lead back to four before Macdonald’s 70th-minute four-pointer looked to have put the game to bed.

Sutton gave the Rabbitohs a sniff with his 75^th minute try before Goodwin’s late four-pointer paved the way for Reynolds’ sideline heroics.