Sexton stars as Dogs solidify finals place

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St George Illawarra Dragons v Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs

Canterbury have celebrated Viliame Kikau's 150th game in style with a 28-10 victory over the Dragons before a sold out Netstrata Jubilee Stadium to solidify their finals chances.

The Dragons had all of the early running but an early attack was brought unstuck. A Ben Hunt pass was intercepted by Matt Burton who ran the best part of 90 metres to score. Burton converted his own try for a 6-0 advantage.

That intercept swung momentum as Christian Tuipulotu put down a Toby Sexton bomb. That was quickly compounded with a penalty as Burton added a gift two points to extend the margin to eight. St George Illawarra did well to respond to this and got the margin back to two points after a great tactical kick from Ben Hunt. Hunt threaded the needle for a kick line-break and Zac Lomax has enough pace to beat Addo-Carr to get the bounce and get the Dragons on the board. It wasn't all flying the Saints way with Hame Sele coming off after suffering an irregular heartbeat.

A quick fire double to Bronson Xerri inside the final 15 minutes of the first half seemed to give the Dogs acendency. The first came after 25 minutes after a well timed grubber from Toby Sexton. Four minutes later, the half and centre combination struck again after a brilliant pass sent Xerri flying to make it 20-6. However, the Dragons had the final say as Kyle Flanagan and Luciano Leilua combined with Tyrell Sloan for the old outside/inside play to send the fullback flying down the left to reduce the gap to eight at the break.

The second stanza was a dour affair as both sides jostled for ascendency. Canterbury capitalised on some sustained field position down the attacking end of the field and crossed with just over twenty to play. Kurt Mann bumps off some really poor defensive efforts there for the Dragons and the little lock forward barged over to score. Burton's conversion made it a 16 point game.

The Dragons had limited second half possession but when they did, they did very little with the football and the Dogs were able to hold them scoreless in the second stanza. Jacob Kiraz looked certain to score with 13 and a half to go, but a courageous tackle by Moses Suli and the Lebanese winger was denied to the boos of the Canterbury faithful. Burton added a gift two points with just over 5 to play after Hunt was pinned for offside.

Canterbury were great and gritty putting together a great 80 minute performance against a team fighting to make the finals. For the Dragons, they just didn't execute in the big moments, that's where they lost the match tonight. The night ended on one sour note, a post match complaint from Crichton that he was bitten by Kyle Flanagan on the nose. Crichton had a bloody nose from the incident and video replays don't favour Flanagan's case. The matter will no doubtly be referred to the Judiciary for a hearing mid-week.