Brisbane were better but have still fallen short by four point against St George, ending another tumultuous week for the club with a 12th loss from 13 games since the NRL’s restart.
Halfback Tom Dearden, centre Kotoni Staggs and young captain Patrick Carrigan worked overtime to change the Broncos’ fortunes after the death of star forward Payne Haas’ brother and a hefty fine for a COVID-19 breach rocked them mid-week.
But a horror start cost them, the Dragons holding off a rare Broncos fightback for a 28-24 victory.
As they are likely to miss the finals, it was a consolation win for the Dragons (6-9) in Dean Young’s first game in charge since Paul McGregor’s departure.
Young was content despite what he labelled a lethargic performance, adding that two-try winger Mikaele Ravalawa had only scratched the surface of his potential.
“I want to know what we’re going to get from the Dragons every week .. at the moment we don’t and that’s the truth of it,” he said.
“But tonight I asked them to back up (last week’s win over Parramatta) and I thought they showed some real grit and consistency to get it done.”
Brisbane (15th, 3-12) produced more flimsy tryline defence early, Josh Kerr and Corey Norman scoring simple close-range tries for Saints to go 12-0 after six minutes.
But they found something, Darius Boyd laying on a try for flyer Richie Kennar and Cory Paix darting from dummy-half to level the scores.
Dufty’s three-man cut-out pass found a rampaging Ravalawa to give the Dragons an 18-12 lead after another try was denied on review for a line-ball knock-on.
Stand-in Brisbane coach Peter Gentle had the team running drills at half-time to address their second-half fade-outs, which had seen them score 12 points and concede 154 in the last 20 minutes of games this season.
And it seemed to rub off on Staggs, who fended and brushed past two would-be tacklers before stepping the fullback to complete a superb 75m try early in the second half.
A penalty edged St George ahead again before flying Fijian Ravalawa scored his second.
Dearden wasn’t done though, his solo try making it a two-point game inside the final 10 minutes after Anthony Milford limped off in his return from a hamstring injury.
Jacob Host then knocked on attempting to score the match-winner but it mattered little as Ben Hunt ran down the clock with some expert in-game kicking.
Gentle praised his captain and described Dearden as a rare “shining light” in a gloomy season but admitted the loss was still hard to swallow.
“We spoke about being able to win it in the last 10 minutes, hanging around and they showed … we still have something to play for,” he said.
“It’s pleasing … but in the end it’s about winning and losing and we’ve lost another one.”
