St George Illawarra coach Paul McGregor was left to try and find the positives after the Dragons’ crushing semi-finals exit on Saturday night.
A hat-trick of Adam Reynolds field goals ended St George Illawarra’s season in heart-breaking fashion, with the Dragons going down 13-12 to South Sydney in a thriller at ANZ Stadium.
It was an enthralling contest fitting of September football. The teams only scored one try each as they defended for their seasons.
While the Dragons will begin their post-mortems, with another season that promised so much ultimately ending with disappointment, Souths advanced to a preliminary final where they will meet the Sydney Roosters in the last ever game of rugby league at the Sydney Football Stadium before its rebuild.
Ben Hunt had given the Dragons the lead just before half-time with a superb solo try before Reynolds got Souths back in the game midway through the second half.
Young centre Zac Lomax was again strong with the boot, kicking four goals including the pressure penalty that put the Dragons in front 12-11 with five minutes to play.
The game looked to be heading to golden-point extra-time after a second Reynolds field goal. But, with their season on the line, the Dragons attempted to run the ball on the last tackle. They only succeeded in handing possession back to Souths 45 metres out from their own line with just under a minute to go.
Souths knew the plan. They attacked the posts again before finding Reynolds. This time he danced around the pressure before slotting his third field goal with 19 seconds remaining to secure a famous victory for South Sydney, breaking Dragons hearts.
“We had it. We lost it. We had it. It came down obviously to the field goal as the difference in the end,” McGregor said.
“I thought the real turning point there in the game was obviously we needed to finish with 17 fit men. And when Tariq [Sims] went off in the back-row on the left edge that put change to that. Possession wise it swung a fair bit their way in the back end.
“For me next door [in the sheds] it’s about the year that was. It’s been our most successful year since 2011.
“Coming into the semi-finals series not in the best form or shape with a few injuries. We go up and put a nice score on Brisbane. [Against Souths] comes down to a field goal in the end.
“So as a coach it’s a great character-building experience for a lot of people.
“We’ve got some real youth in next door. There’s four or five guys their main goal this year was just to make first grade and they’ve come out and played most of the year in first grade and finished in the second week of the semi-finals series. So very happy.”
