It's been a roller-coaster kind of a year for the Dragons, but through all the highs and lows coach Paul McGregor said Friday night's 26-24 loss to the Rabbitohs was the one that hurt the most.
Having fallen to the Knights last week, most people assumed the Red V would steady the ship with a win over a South Sydney side that seemingly had nothing to play for.
Instead of cementing their place in the top eight for another week, the Dragons could well drop to ninth should the Panthers take care of the second-from-bottom Wests Tigers on Sunday afternoon.
It's a stunning scenario for a Dragons side that looked odds on to claim the two competition points when Nene Macdonald touched down to give them a 24-14 lead with nine minutes remaining.
However, the Rabbitohs produced one of the comebacks of 2017 with two tries in the space of three minutes to draw level before halfback Adam Reynolds landed the sideline conversion to put a serious dent in St George Illawarra's finals hopes.
"When you're up by 10 with 10 to go, you don't lose those games," McGregor said after the game.
"What's disappointing is they scored a try and then on the next set they went 80 metres to score off that set. It shouldn't happen at any point of the game, but [for it to happen] in a really important period with five or six minutes to go, we've got to be more resilient than that.
"Every game is important and it's been like that for a while, but tonight's loss is as disappointing as last week's.
"The last 10 minutes wasn't up to standard."
Dragons skipper Gareth Widdop couldn't believe the way in which his side surrendered the lead given what was at stake.
"We can't be losing games like that," the Englishman said.
"Our composure in defence at the end let us down. It's disappointing because we worked hard to get back in that game and we had a bit of a lead, so nothing against them, but we could have solved it."
The Dragons host the Titans next week, head to Brisbane and then travel to Penrith in Round 25 in what shapes as an elimination final before they round out the regular season with a game against the out-of-sorts Bulldogs.
