The Dragons scored their most points in 2012 back in Round 3 when they smashed the Wests Tigers 36-12 at WIN Jubilee Oval.
Dragons hooker Mitch Rein scored the first of his side’s six tries, dummying inside and out in a 10-metre scoot from dummy-half.
Brett Morris, in his first game at fullback in 2012, carved the Tigers open from close range and looked certain to score their second try in the 14th minute before being wrestled to a halt on the goal line – but he was still able to promote the ball to Dan Hunt who plunged over under the posts for a 12-nil advantage.
Beau Ryan stopped the bleeding for the visitors when he pounced on a Benji Marshall grubber kick for a 12-6 scoreline with 20 minutes gone; however it didn’t take long for the Dragons to again expose some flimsy defence up the middle, with Trent Merrin breaking through from 20 metres out then offloading to Nathan Fien who plunged over to the right of the posts for an 18-point buffer five minutes from fulltime.
Ben Hornby completed the Dragons’ first-half scoring onslaught, grabbing a precise and smart Nathan Fien pass to dot down under the posts for a 24-6 lead at the break.
Returning from the sheds, Jamie Soward ensured the visitors would need to score four times when he booted a penalty goal for a 26-6 lead at the 47-minute mark, before Joel Reddy breathed hope into the Tigers’ cause with a left-edge try in the 54th minute.
That was all the joy there would be for Tigers fans, with tries to Daniel Vidot (70th minute) and Ben Creagh (77th minute) rounding out their misery.
The Tigers returned a low count for missed tackles (28) – but unfortunately they missed the ones that mattered. Errors also cruelled their cause, with a whopping 19 dropped balls throughout the 80 minutes.
Both sides were guilty of not respecting the football, with the home team completing their sets at 67 per cent and the Tigers a lousy 50 per cent.
The Dragons dominated the line-breaks 5-1 and missed just 10 tackles all evening.
Second-rower Matt Prior had a huge game with 20 hit-ups and three offloads, while Morris added two try assists and six damaging offloads to go with a rampaging 195 metres.
Liam Fulton was the best of the Tigers with 51 tackles.
