The St. George Illawarra Dragons have defeated the Wests Tigers 46-14 in Round 1 of the Holden Cup NYC Competition this Sunday afternoon at ANZ Stadium.
Fullback Matthew Duffy was a clear man of the match with four tries on the day.
Despite scoring the first try of the match through Tom Satterthwaite, the visiting Wests Tigers were quickly over-run by their opponents, as the Dragons ran in nine tries to three.
Called into the starting lineup as a replacement for Marion Seve (who was a late withdrawal with an eye injury), Satterthwaite crossed in just the fourth minute of the match after a sweeping back-line move from right to left. Woods failed in his sideline conversion attempt.
After back-to-back penalties and a number of repeat sets on our line, Matthew Duffy crossed for the first of his three first-half tries after a nice scrum move with Isaac Thompson on the left saw him run around and score under the posts.
Hayden McCrae converted to give the hosts a 6-4 lead.
After a successful 40/20 kick from Drew Hutchison, the Dragons extended their lead in the 24th minute when Brent Anderson burrowed over from dummy half close to the left wing.
The Dragons scored again in the following set when Duffy burst on to an inside ball close to the line. The fullback accelerated quickly to beat Alofi and score out on the right wing. McCrae’s conversion again sailed wide of the posts to leave the score at 14-4.
Delouise Hoeter almost brought the visitors back into the match before half-time but he was well tackled just short of the line. The Dragons would march up field with the ball right before the interval then, with Duffy grabbing this third off a short ball close to the line.
The conversion was successful to give the Dragons at 20-4 half-time lead.
St. George Illawarra scored again just after the break through Isaac Thompson, who finished off a nice back-line move from right to left. Siti Mocidreke nailed the conversion from the sideline to give the Dragons a commanding 26-4 lead in the 43rd minute.
The hosts threatened to score again soon after that but Satterthwaite pulled off an intercept on halfway as the Dragons were attacking. The winger raced 50m to score in the left corner, as a high shot from Dragons captain Adam Clune saw him placed on report.
The gap was reduced to 12 points in the 54th minute when quick hands saw the visitors score in the right corner, but the Dragons hit back in the final 20 minutes with two tries to Thompson, Evan Aitken and a fourth try to Duffy extending their lead to 32 points.
