St George Illawarra continued their poor record at the Auckland Nines, eliminated from the tournament with a 23-20 loss to Manly in their second pool match.
The Dragons lost their first Piha Pool match to Parramatta and needed to beat the Sea Eagles to keep their hopes of reaching the quarter-finals for the first time alive.
St George Illawarra started well when electric young fullback Matt Dufty scored a bonus-zone try in the opening 30 seconds to give the Dragons a 7-0 lead.
Another of the Dragons’ former Holden Cup superstars, Jai Field, scored his second try of the tournament moments later to open up an 11-0 advantage.
But then St George Illawarra wilted in the Auckland heat, giving up a soft try to Joey Lussick from dummy half.
Curtis Sironen barged over for Manly a minute later before Brian Kelly scored a superb solo bonus-zone try to give Manly a 17-11 lead at half-time.
Then it was Field’s time to shine, showing all of his blistering pace to run 80 metres, beating three Manly players to score a bonus-zone try.
But the Dragons were unable to take back the lead, missing the conversion from in front.
A Peter Schuster try extended Manly’s lead to 23-16 before a late Joel Thompson try gave the Dragons hope.
With Parramatta winning their second pool match against the New Zealand Warriors, the Eels and Sea Eagles advance to the quarter-finals with the Dragons and Warriors eliminated.
St George Illawarra have now won just three of their 11 matches so far in the history of the annual pre-season tournament.
St George Illawarra will play the Warriors in their final pool match at 9.50am (AEDT) on Sunday.
