Forty-four unanswered second-half points from the St George Illawarra Dragons have seen them top the half-century for the first time at WIN Stadium since 2017, to defeat the battling Wests Tigers in Wollongong tonight while Zac Lomax broke Amos Roberts' record for most points in a single match.
The Tigers started with intent and delivered opening points after just 5 minutes of play. Following an early 40/20 from Api Koroisau, the Tigers set up camp in the Dragons attacking zone and had several chances including Jahreem Bula going close to scoring. From the ensuing play, Jayden Sullivan put a clever cross-field kick in and in his maiden NRL start, Alex Lobb crossed for his maiden NRL try. Koroisau was unable to add the extras but it was an impressive Tigers start.
Wests were playing such an expansive style of football in the early stages causing the Dragons defence to be turned around early on. St George Illawarra's defence was further caught napping following a right hand shift, Charlie Staines offloaded it well to Jahreem Bula to find the space in open field before linking up with Jayden Sullivan who finished off the movement he started as the former Dragons had their own way in the opening 20 minutes. Koroisau converted for a 10-0 lead.
After earning the first penalty of the match, the St George Illawarra Dragons had some field position and worked their way back into the game after forcing some errors from the Tigers. A clever cross-field kick from Ben Hunt found a swarm of Tigers players lacking the desire to get the ball, fortunately for the hosts, Tyrell Sloan batted it back to Kyle Flanagan to get the Dragons back into it at the 23 minute mark.
Five minutes later, Moses Suli caught a couple of shocking Tigers defenders offside and bumped away from a couple of tacklers to break away. Suli found Lomax who stepped past a couple of would be defenders to level the scores, Lomax's conversion gave the Dragons their first lead of the night.
Despite a crazy end to the half, with both sides playing end to end footy, some push and shove and Flanagan being denied for a double movement, the scores stayed the same right up to the change of ends. Two late Tigers penalties gave them a late chance, Sullivan dug deep into the line to find Alex Seyfarth who redeems himself for the penalty that he conceded minutes earlier and gets the lead back for the visitors on the break.
St George Illawarra capitalised on a slow second half start from the Tigers to cross first. A nice shift saw Flanagan deliver a wonderful pass to Suli get through a yawning gap exposing the poor edge defence of the Tigers. Suli got it away to Mat Feagai to cross for the try. Lomax added the extras for a four point lead. The Dragons soon got an extra man and a converted try lead when Jayden Sullivan was sin-binned for a professional foul, Lomax added the penalty goal for a 20-14 lead.
Capitalising on the extra man advantage and some real elementary mistakes including Solomon Alaimalo mistaking the rules around the sideline. St George Illawarra went down the Sullivan edge to cross. Hunt caught all the defenders on the right edge napping as he delivered a wonderful pass to Luciano Leilua to cross. Lomax converted for a 26-14 lead. Ben Hunt added further salt in the wound with a clever individual try to make it 32-14.
The Tigers kept making mistakes and it was their undoing in the second half. Despite having Sullivan return, the young side made another mistake and Leilua pounced on the grubber kick to cross for his second. Despite their best efforts, Wests' couldn't trouble the scorer in the second half after Seyfarth was denied for a double movement with 15 to go. From that penalty, Jacob Liddle caused havoc in the middle linking up with his middles to send Flanagan away before finding Mat Feagai for his second. Lomax added to his try tally of 2024 with his second. To add further salt into the Tigers wound, the conversion doinked off the upright to bring up the half century. Some last minute trickery saw Hunt do a reverse banana kick to Max Feagai and finds Lomax to cross for a hattrick break the record for most points in a match for the Dragons.