St George Illawarra and the Cronulla Sharks might be bitter rivals, but last weekend they had to share the same dressing room at Kogarah's Jubilee Oval -albeit with a good clean between games.
The outcome was the same for both local NRL teams with the Dragons going down 32-28 to Penrith and the Sharks 12-10 to Melbourne.
The good news for Dragons fans is they compete for the whole eighty minutes and can score points. The bad news is they are failing to learn from their mistakes which is starting to cost them.
It was the same result as last week for the Dragons at an empty Netstrata Jubilee Stadium on Friday night as they let a ten-point lead slip through their fingers as they failed to take chances when they occurred.
In losing games of football they are in a position to win they are making it hard for themselves, coach Paul McGregor said.
"We're scoring 28 points. You should win. But defensively you shouldn't let in 32."
Off contract second-rower, Tyson Frizell was critical of the team's attention to detail and spoke about effort- but effort's not going to get them two points.
McGregor said captain Cameron McInnes is a good chance of making an early return from a knee injury in next Thursday's away match against the Raiders, while they will also have the suspended Tariq Sims back.
It was also a good result for the team with fullback Matt Dufty, in his 50th game scoring a double in his comeback from a fractured cheekbone.
"There were positives there, but I think there were a lot more negatives that I'm going to have to go back to training and work on," Dufty said
The Dragons are looking to avoid their worst start to a season in seven years when they travel south to play last year's grand finalists at a ground where they famously 11 games in a row, before finally turning it around, winning two of their last three.
Due to the coronavirus lockouts, there was no crowd on hand to watch the game firsthand, but the Dragons still had some home support, with a few die-hard fans forlornly waving their flags and cheering loudly from outside the northern gates-It didn't help.
