NRL Dolphins vs Dragons: Jamayne Isaako shines as Jack De Belin is sent to the sin bin

Mark Molyneux

•
NRL Dolphins vs Dragons: Jamayne Isaako shines as Jack De Belin is sent to the sin bin image

In reality, it took the Dolphins just 15 first half minutes to beat the Dragons and notch their seventh win of the season to firmly entrench themselves within the top-eight.

It was Jamayne Isaako, on his 100th NRL appearance, who brought an abrupt end to St George Illawarra’s bright start when he reeled in a bomb to level the scores. His first of two tries on the night kickstarted a swing of momentum which resulted in three quick fire four-pointers to essentially put the game beyond the reach of their opponents, as the Dolphins eased to a 26-12 victory.  

Jack De Belin is sent to the sin bin as Jamayne Isaako scores a double

The home side ran out comfortable winners and were helped along the way by the sin-binning of stand-in skipper Jack De Belin, who was dismissed for a cannonball tackle.

MORE: St George Illawarra make controversial decision to appoint Jack De Belin as skipper

“I don’t think I went in too hard or too low or with any bad intent, so I was pretty shocked, in all honesty, to be sin-binned,” he said post-match.

His act was sandwiched in between the three tries in the first half which blew the game apart and from there, the Dragons were left chasing their tails.

“I’ll have to have another look at it,” Ryan Carr eventually said when asked for his opinion on the decision.

“I want to have another look at a few things that happened in that game, to be honest with you.

“If it is, it is and I’ll live with it. We know that’s the way the game is going with them trying to look after the players – that’s fine.

“I don’t want to make too many outlandish comments…It just seemed to be a lot of penalties early and then all of a sudden the whistle went away late, so I don’t understand why and just want to have a look at it all.”

Toby Couchman burrowed his way over on the stroke of half time to reduce the deficit to six points. But Isaako’s second early in the second period put to bed any hopes the Dragons had of reeling in Wayne Bennett’s men as he pushed his personal points haul on the night to 18. 

“He came to the Broncos because of me,” Bennett said of the winger.

“He was somebody who everyone kind of wanted at the time- he was a schoolboy star.

“He wasn’t going to let the boys rain on his parade tonight. He took the game by the scruff of the neck and kicked five out of five and scored two tries, so he was going to make sure he wasn’t coming off the field in his 100th game without playing well.”

Wayne Bennett happy with Anthony Milford after Dolphins win 

The Dolphins are simply good at all the fundamentals of the game that the Dragons are poor at.

They held onto the ball and completed their sets in a customarily efficient manner and maintained their composure, while Carr’s side repeatedly dropped their bundle and came up with dreadful reads in defence to make the task impossible for themselves.

The Dragons made eight errors and conceded three penalties in the second half when they were forced to chase the game.

Their disjointed attacking lines and lack of cutting edge due to the absence of Ben Hunt, who was away on Origin duties, would have been noticeable from space.

“That whole set had no purpose to it,” Shane Flanagan said on Fox League as he sounded like he wanted to beat his head against the glass in the commentary box.

“It was just pass to the player next to you and get tackled when you needed to get tackled.

“They didn’t set up for any shape and they ran towards the sideline on every play. It was a poor set from the Dragons.”

Flanagan’s summarisation could have been synced over almost every set St George Illawarra produced in the closing stages and still have rung true.

“It was a frustrating game as a whole for us as a team and a club,” Carr said.  

“We made it far too hard on ourselves but fair play to the Dolphins, they played a good game of footy and hardly made an error.

“They turned the ball over down our end of the field all night and we hardly saw their try line.”

Jacob Liddle offered his side’s best avenue of attack with the hooker producing one try assist, two linebreaks to go with his game-high 51 tackles.

But it was his opposite number who stole the show with Jeremy Marshall-King causing havoc amongst the Dragons’ defensive line all night.

For his try assist to the returning Mark Nicholls close to the line, he didn’t need to work too hard as a chasm of space opened up between De Belin and Jack Bird, which allowed the prop to collect the flat pass out of dummy-half and stroll over the stripe.

Yet he continued to dictate the flow of the match, as he finished with one try assist, one linebreak, one linebreak assist, 50 running metres and 40 tackles in an eye-catching display.

Although it was another Dolphins playmaker who earned the plaudits post-match, with Anthony Milford producing one of his best games in recent memory.

“Anthony Milford,” Bennett mumbled with a slight smirk after being asked for his assessment of his five-eighth.

“I’ll have to think about that. But I’ll let you make the headlines on him.”

Mark Molyneux

Mark Molyneux Photo

Mark Molyneux is a freelance writer covering the NRL and UFC for Sporting News Australia. He has previously worked in the music industry and as a teacher around the world.