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| Dragons extend winning streak to one |
Beautiful banana kick |
You know how the script goes at Knowsley Road: Dragons score early before shipping 50-odd and getting a late consolation or two. Early on in this clash, it didn't even look like we were going to get the early score, but a curiously disjointed St Helens never kicked on and the Dragons, occasionally looking somewhere near their best, took full advantage.
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Maybe Saints were guilty of taking the Dragons lightly - if they had, few could blame them on recent displays by the Perpignan side - as they came into the game with a debutant stand-off, Lee Gaskell, and a second row forward, Jon Wilkin back from injury, at scrum-half. Early on, though, it didn't seem to matter as Saints made good progress upfield, went close on their right before swinging it back left where Paul Wellens ran a great angle to break the sliding defence and cross for the evening's opener which Jonny Lomax goaled. Here we go again, went the collected thinking.
Not so, however. Saints were pulled up for a forward pass in their own half three minutes later and, two tackles after the scrum, Dane Carlaw burst through the right centre channel to cross and Thomas Bosc squared it up at six. Other than that, the first quarter was pretty stodgy stuff, but that seemed to suit the Dragons who steadily grew in confidence, the predicted backlash from Saints never materialising. It threatened to 27 minutes into the contest when a chip wide was expertly gathered by Francis Meli, climbing high above Steve Bell, and grounded despite having next to no room to work in. Again, the Dragons responded within moments.
The forwards had driven the Catalans deep into Saints territory. Driving it right, Bosc collected at second receiver and put in a banana kick back to the left which Clint Greenshields read to perfection to gather on the full and plunge over the line beneath the sticks for a superb score, the routine conversion putting the Dragons ahead. It got better still three minutes later when Brent Sherwin's grubber to the posts was swooped on by Casey McGuire and it was positively dreamland a further three minutes later when Carlaw sent Sherwin away before he drew the full-back Wellens and slipped it inside to Greenshields who crossed unopposed. Bosc maintained his 100% kicking rate and the teams headed to the sheds with the Dragons in a scarcely believable 24-10 lead.
The first ten of the second half became key, but the Dragons held Saints at bay, largely thanks to some excellent line defence. Gaskell got a firm welcome to Super League when Jamal Fakir hit him with a massive shot that left the young man reeling. It was a lesson quickly learned though as, off the back of a Dragons knock-on close to their own line, Gaskell shimmied and stepped his way through three attempted tackles to score on his debut. Lomax added the goal to make it an eight-point ball game.
Yet again, though, the Dragons hit back within a few minutes. Taking advantage of a penalty given away in centre field, Carlaw again burst down the centre channel and gave it inside to Sherwin who scampered to the line and had the foresight to run round the back of the posts to give Bosc an easy one for his fifth goal of the night. Four minutes later, Saints pulled another one back, Meli again squeezing in at the corner. Lomax was again off target, leaving it 30-20 with quarter of the game to go.
Saints surprised everyone by withdrawing Gaskell for Ade Gardner, leaving them with no half-backs at all. Despite plenty of pressure, the cutting edge to break down the Dragons - who were defending as well as they have all season - wasn't there. The Dragons could have sealed it when Sherwin flung a cut-out ball wide for Cyril Stacul, but the young winger couldn't quite haul it in. The clock became St Helens' enemy and the Catalans closed the game out in relative comfort as the home side got increasingly desperate and their timing failed them as a result.
Any away win is good. Any win of any sort has been welcome in this sorry season, but this was a really good performance, albeit in the face of an off-colour opposition. Saints still had plenty of match-winners on show, despite missing quite a few, but the Dragons held them at bay. Dane Carlaw, playing out in the three-quarters again, kept the mercurial Matthew Gidley quiet which always goes a long way to stopping Saints doing what they do so well. They tried to get James Graham involved with his ball-handling ability, but it became to readable, too predictable and the Dragons coped with it with little real fuss. Carlaw was good, again, but he is pipped to the sang-et-or.net man of the match award by Thomas Bosc who had probably his best game of the season. The timing was back and on the back of that, the tricks and flicks began to come off, none better than the reverse kick for Greenshields' first. Carlaw takes two points in the race for the player of the year award, while the final point goes to Brent Sherwin who had a good all-round display of creativity, support and defence.
MATCH FACTS
DRAGONS 30-20 ST HELENS
| | DRAGONS | T | G | DG | | ST HELENS | T | G | DG |
| 1 | Greenshields | 2 | | |
1 | Wellens | 1 | | |
| 2 | Bell | | | |
24 | Lomax | | 2 | |
| 3 | Raguin | | | |
3 | Gidley | | | |
| 18 | Carlaw | 1 | | |
19 | Dean | | | |
| 26 | Stacul | | | |
5 | Meli | 2 | | |
| 7 | Bosc | | 5 | |
32 | Gaskell | 1 | | |
| 30 | Sherwin | 1 | | |
12 | Wilkin | | | |
| 24 | Casty | | | |
8 | Fozzard | | | |
| 9 | McGuire | 1 | | |
14 | Roby | | | |
| 10 | Guisset | | | |
10 | Graham | | | |
| 17 | Gossard | | | |
13 | Flannery | | | |
| 12 | Mounis | | | |
18 | Ashurst | | | |
| 13 | Johnson | | | |
17 | Clough | | | |
| 22 | Fakir | | | |
2 | Gardner | | | |
| 25 | Gigot | | | |
11 | Puletua | | | |
| 27 | Simon | | | |
15 | Hargreaves | | | |
| 29 | A Bentley | | | |
16 | Moore | | | |
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