Dragons breathe fire into 2025 with thrashing of Titans

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St George Illawarra Dragons v Gold Coast Titans

The St George Illawarra Dragons breathed fire into their 2025 season courtesy of a 22-point thrashing of the Gold Coast Titans at WIN Stadium.

The Titans thought they opened the scoring in the opening five minutes when Jaylan De Groot sliced through some paper-thin defence. But the Bunker spotted a knock on from Reagan Campbell-Gillard and the try was overturned. A few minutes later, Chris Randall broke through before a desperation tackle from Clint Gutherson saved the day.

Following a six-again, the home side opened the scoring with a well worked move down the left-hand touchline. This sent Christian Tuipulotu into space and he streaked away to score, his celebration was still extravagant despite Shane Flanagan's warnings. Eight minutes later, the Titans reduced the gap to two when David Fifita was able to isolate Lachlan Ilias one-on-one and get the pass away to Brian Kelly to score.

After a lull in the contest where both sides struggled to break through each other's defensive patterns. St George Illawarra capitalised on a Brock Gray crusher tackle to cross for their second try. A terrific short pass from Luciano Leilua caught the Titans defence asleep and Valentine Holmes slid through to score with eight to go before the break.

The Dragons would add a further two tries before the break in a ruthless display of attacking football, punishing the Titans poor handling. The error count kept rising for the visitors and the door continued to open for the home side. Great shape from Flanagan to get Suli on the outside of Kelly and Tyrell Sloan had too much pace for Francis to score.

Just before the break, Leilua's ball playing again caught the Titans asleep as Holmes broke through. The QLD Origin star linked up with Gutherson before finding Kyle Flanagan to go over for a 20-point halftime lead.

Straight after the break, the Dragons got to work courtesy of a brilliant pass from Flanagan which landed on Tuipulotu's chest to go over untouched out wide. His celebration returned but his match ended prematurely, leaving the game with 20 to go with a hamstring injury. Just on the hour mark, some great passing from Lachlan Ilias caught the Titans edge defence wanting and it was a simple draw and pass to send Sloan over for a second.

From the short restart, the Titans were able to cause carnage. Fifita ran over 30 metres before linking up with Beau Fermor who held the ball up nicely and sent Phil Sami over for a try to cut the gap to 24 points. The night for the visitors got worse when Brock Gray ended up in the sinbin for a high tackle.

The Dragons put an exclamation mark on this one when Ilias had the ball on a string. It was a terrific ball to the young edge forward Dylan Egan who was one of the best on ground to score in the final ten minutes. The Titans added consolation when AJ Brimson finished off a great team try courtesy of some great work from Jayden Campbell but it was all in vein as the Dragons won by 22 points.