KEY POINTS:
NRL
Titans 22
Dragons 26
Seven weeks ago, despair circulated around Wollongong.
It had already been announced supercoach Wayne Bennett would be ending his 21-year Brisbane love affair and taking over in 2009 but it couldn't come soon enough for Dragons fans.
They had won only twice
in nine rounds and were thought to be the Rabbitohs' main contenders for the wooden spoon.
Last night, though, they notched up their sixth win on the trot to overtake the Titans in fifth place.
There has been more than anelement of luck in that run, given wins over Melbourne and Brisbane were achieved when both were badly affect by State of Origin.
And last night they met a Titans side without the injured Luke Bailey and second-rower Anthony Laffranchi and, more importantly, halfback Scott Prince, who were both on Origin duty.
The Dragons were without Matt Cooper (Origin) and Mark Gasnier (injured) but Prince is like the Chinese Communist Party - he controls everything for the Gold Coast side.
The bookies installed the visitors as favourites - even though the Titans were unbeaten at home this season. The fact they were also in something of a slump freakishly similar to what happened at this stage last season - they had lost three of their last four - was also hard to ignore.
The Dragons, though, were made to work hard for it. The Titans coped well without their brilliant halfback and held the lead for most of the opening 68 minutes but finally succumbed to some relentless Dragons pressure.
The visitors rained kicks down on Titans winger Brett Delaney and scored two criucial tries in the second half that way.
They finally took a decisive 26-22 lead through Michael Letts but were then forced into some desperate rearguard defence as the Titans threw everything at them in a tight, thrilling finish.
The home side had opened the scoring as early as the fourth minute when Prince's replacement, Brad Davis, expertly kicked for the corner for Ben Jeffery to score a simple try.
After Mat Rogers landed a penalty to stretch the lead to 8-0, the two sides traded tries in an end-to-end contest to go into the break with the Titans leading 14-12.
The Dragons had a slice of luck with their first try, to influencital halfback Ben Hornby, given they had clearly knocked the ball on a couple of plays earlier.
The Titans struck first again in the second spell through Luke O'Dwyer but the Dragons looked the more dangerous side and scored decisive tries to Chase Stanley and then Letts when attacking Delaney's wing.
Titans 22 (B. Jeffery, B. Delaney, L. O'Dwyer, M. Rogers tries, Rogers 3 gls) Dragons 26 (B. Hornby, B. Morris, C. Stanley, M. Lett tries, J. Soward 3 gls)
