A week after setting tongues wagging with an outstanding first-up effort against the Titans in round one, the Dragons were blitzed 38-0 by the Dolphins in Redcliffe on Sunday night.

In what looked every bit the Wayne Bennett special, the Dolphins bounced back from the heaviest round-one defeat for any side to send the Dragons packing by an even bigger margin a week later.

Brilliant fullback Hamiso Tabuai-Fidow was the chief destroyer, grabbing a maiden career hat-trick, two courtesy of assists from Wollongong product Jack Bostock.

He also ensured the Dolphins kept the first clean sheet in the club's short history when he denied Tyrell Sloan what would have been the Dragons first try of the night in the dying seconds.

The biggest win in Dolphins history came after Bennett wielded the axe on halfback Sean O'Sullivan following a 43-18 loss to the Cowboys last week.

He got more than he bargained for in losing Kodi Nikorima due to a failed HIA 17 minutes in, the knock coming courtesy of Kyle Flanagan's hip.

Hooker Jeremy Marshall-King joined him in the assessment room five minutes later after wearing a clearing kick from Hunt square in the head.

It left the starting rake looking like floored fighter as he wobbled to his feet after copping arguably the hardest falcon in the history of synthetic footys.

It saw Kurt Donoghoe injected in the halves and Max Plath shifting to dummy-half, but the stubborn hosts refused to concede a point before the break.

It continued in the second half, with the Dragons not really looking like posting points after running in five second-half tries last week.

The Dragons will now head home for the first outing outside of Queensland this season against the 2-0 Cowboys at Kogarah on Saturday.

There'll be plenty for Flanagan to pore over in the lead-up to that game, with the pasting enough to make last week's first-up victory now appear like a blip on the radar.

"It was the complete opposite to what we had last week," Flanagan said post-game.

"We had energy and commitment [last week], and today we had none of that.

"We weren't the better team at halftime, but I thought we hung in there and we could come back, but the second half just got worse again.

"I thought today's performance just wasn't good enough for a Dragons jersey. We've addressed that and we're going to work really hard about it. [I'll] be really clear, we're not happy about it.

"We've still got some work to do. [We're] really, really disappointed that we've gone backwards, but we'll shake it all off and go again."

Flanagan said following the first-up win over the Titans that the "new Dragons" were looking to go back to back in Queensland, but it was the same old Dragons that turned up in the second stanza on Sunday.

Flanagan was reportedly happy with his side's defence at halftime having conceded two tries off kicks, one of them a length-of-the-field effort from Tabuai-Fidow against the run of play.

Nikorima laid on the Dolphins second try with a deft kick for reigning Ken Irvine Medalist Jamayne Isaako before being forced from the field seven minutes later for a HIA.

The Dolphins 10-point lead after a frenetic opening 40 came despite enjoying just seven play-the-balls in the Dragons 20.

The visitors were otherwise structurally sound defensively - albeit with the Dolphins in disarray amid HIA's to Nikorima and Marshall-King - but it was hot knife through butter stuff for the hosts in the second stanza.

Mark Nicholls crossed all too easily nine minutes into the second half, the close-range four-pointer came one off the ruck through Jacob Liddle and Jaydn Su'A, who could barely lay a finger on Nicholls as breezed by.

New Dolphin Jake Averillo did the same from slightly further out 10 minutes later when he brushed past Hunt to cross, while Marshall-King sold Sloan a massive dummy to sneak over from dummy-half 12 minutes from time.

There was much more flare in Tabuai-Fidow's second half double, but it's the close-range efforts that will likely make for a painful video session at Dragons HQ this week.

The defensive lapses were compounded by 13 errors, with four of the Dolphins five second half tries coming the set after a Dragons mistake.

A whopping 31 missed tackles is not something easily glossed over, with Flanagan saying there's no excuse for such a vast fluctuation in energy and desire.

"That's a disappointing thing, you can't have it one week and then not have the following week," Flanagan said.

"Not that quickly, not in a week's time, and not so drastic.

"Give credit to the opposition, I thought they were really tidy and stuck to a game plan. They ran hard, they had three errors the whole game, so we were poor and they were good.

"Give credit to the way they defended, they worked really hard in their contact and on the ground. It's probably more the opposition [that was different].

"We had the same cattle as we had last week, we just weren't as effective because of the opposition."

You can't keep them all, but you have to wonder what Dragons fans were thinking watching former stand-out Steeler Jack Bostock lay on two tries for Tabuai-Fidow.

The Dolphins snuck under the Dragons guard to lure the Shellharbour product north for their inaugural season in 2023.

He ironically debuted in Wollongong against the Dragons last season, one of four games in the top grade, but he showed a truer glimpse of his potential in a single outing on Sunday.

First, the 20-year-old leapt above noted aerial threat Zac Lomax to pull down a bomb from Hunt and race thirty metres up the park. Tabuai-Fidow loomed in support and burned the Dragons cover for the opening try just six minutes in.

The Queensland Origin flyer also had Bostock to thank for his second try of the night after he chased down an in-field banana kick from his winger in the 59th minute.

It was part of an unhappy night for the Dragons right edge combination of Jack Bird and Lomax, with both Tabuai-Fidow's second half four-pointers coming down that channel.

It would appear trigger-happy to make changes with his side at 1-1, but Flanagan didn't rule it out following the performance.

"At the moment, I probably think that's the best team that we thought we [could] put on the paddock," Flanagan said.

"Hame Sele should be back next week, he'll probably come into the team, our second grade played well.

"We'll have a look at it, but that wasn't good enough tonight, so we might have to make some changes."