ST George Illawarra’s frustrating season continued when defeated by South Sydney 29-10 at ANZ Stadium last night.
It was the Dragons seventh loss in the past eight games, a week after coach Steve Price was sacked and replaced by assistant Paul McGregor.
They have four wins from 11 games and with the bye after 12 rounds have 10 premiership points.
While the Dragons tried hard and didn’t have much possession in the second half, Souths were too good.
The teams had a scoreless opening 20 minutes.
The Dragons were willing but lacked cohesion at times against a robust Souths team; they trailed 18-4 at halftime.
McGregor made several positional changes, switching regular fullback Josh Dugan to right centre and bringing Adam Quinlan at fullback.
The Dragons won three of their four games this season with Quinlan in the No. 1 jersey, scoring 109 points in the first four rounds of the season, but they struggled with the Rabbitohs.
Tyson Frizell was promoted from the interchange bench to start in the pack and made several strong runs.
Benji Marshall, in his second game back in the NRL after his rugby union stint in New Zealand, was halfback.
Some of his passing and kicking lacked fluency but in fairness to him, he needs five or six weeks of matches and training to find his feet.
The Souths plan to march downfield on the back of consecutive forward plays through the rucks had the desired effect, tiring the Dragons defenders.
Gareth Widdop and Frizell tried hard for the Dragons.
McGregor has plenty of work to do in moulding a competitive team.
Souths 29 (Joel Reddy 2; Sam Burgess, Dylan Walker, Adam Reynolds tries, Adam Reynolds 3 goals, Dylan Walker one goal, Adam Reynolds field goal)
d St George Illawarra 10 (Gerard Beale, Tyson Frizell tries; Gareth Widdop one goal).
Crowd: 11,771.
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