A scintillating first half from the Dragons set up a 30-26 victory at Suncorp Stadium on Saturday night against the Broncos whose season is now hanging by a thread.
St George Illawarra are back inside the top eight, while Brisbane have lost six games in a row for the first time since their wooden spoon season in 2020 and they sit languishing in 13th.
Kevin Walters’ side, who played in the 2023 grand final, will need to win six of their final seven games to play finals.
MATCH CENTRE: Broncos vs Dragons, video, replay, stats
Dragons big man Christian Tuipulotu barged his way over in the seventh minute to score the opener and finished the game with his first career hat-trick.
Broncos hooker Billy Walters hit back in the 13th minute when he sold a dummy and darted over before giving his rivals a spray.
But Brisbane centre Kotoni Staggs was then binned for a professional foul at marker and it proved a turning point in the match.
Dragons centre Moses Suli ran a sensational line to score in the corner and silence the Suncorp crowd in the 25th minute.
Tuipulotu then beat four defenders to score his second before Broncos fullback Tristan Sailor dropped a bomb cold in the 34th minute and it went straight into the hands of Jaydn Su’A who crashed over.
The visitors picked up where they left off in the second half with Tuipulotu scoring his third in the 44th minute.
Quick-fire tries from Broncos young guns Ezra Mam and Blake Mozer, and a double from Staggs ensured a tight finish, but it wasn’t enough.
The Dragons lost Raymond Faitala-Mariner in the warm-up to back spasms.
Here are the biggest talking points out of the match.
Sami’s cutting Gutherino celebration | 01:11
BRONCOS BATTLING
Two teams have lost five games in a row and gone on to win the premiership, but no side has bounced from six straight defeats.
The Broncos in 2006 and the Storm in 2012 did it after five conservative losses but now Brisbane will have to make history if they’re to win the title this year.
Club legend Corey Parker, who played in that 2006 side, said there are “too many individuals in the side” at the moment.
“You get what you deserve in rugby league and across the 80 minutes the Dragons were the better side,” Parker said.
“To win a grand final after six straight losses is extremely hard to do, only two teams have done it after losing five straight. After six it’s very, very difficult.
“We’ve seen right across the park at different stages this season, offensively has never been an issue but defensively has been, they haven’t stayed in the fight for long enough. It was 22-6 at halftime on their home deck they copped three straight tries.
At the moment there’s too many individuals in the side trying to solve problems themselves instead of collectively going after it for 80 minutes.
“When you’re in a rut like they are at the moment, this is a grand final side from last year sitting 13th, yes they’ve had some adversity missing players but so are a lot of teams. They need to find a way to get themselves off the canvas and that starts defensively.”
Parker emphasised the Origin decider at Suncorp this week will only briefly take the pressure off Kevin Walters’ side.
“It won’t go away, six in a row, you can’t evade that, the Broncos since 1988 have been built on success and this is a team that went within a whisker of winning the competition last year and now they sit 13th,” he said.
“It’s not acceptable, it’s never been acceptable at Brisbane and I’m sure Kevin Walters would be feeling that, the pressure would be immense at the moment. The drums are beating at the moment in Brisbane.”
SIN BIN TURNING POINT
Broncos centre Kotoni Staggs was binned in the 16th minute in what proved a game-changing moment.
Staggs was given his marching orders by referee Liam Kennedy after swatting the ball out of Tyrell Sloan’s hands while offside at marker.
The Dragons then scored the next four tries which set up the victory and No. 6 Kyle Flanagan revealed they targeted Staggs’ left edge when he was off.
“Yeah for sure, we do a lot of work at training if an opposition player goes down to attack that space and go to a far-field position then come back at that spot,” he said.
“Luckily we scored a few tries there where Kotoni was defending and that was an important period for us.”
Former premiership-winning centre Will Chambers slammed Staggs’ blunder summed up the Broncos’ season.
“It’s just lazy, lazy. Gets up and it basically sums up their season what’s going on, it’s frustration and then he gets 10,” Chambers said on Fox League.
“But he lets him team down and we see Moses Suli stroll past Jordan Riki defending out of position and he’s just hurting his team.
“That’s been their year, they’ve been up and down and inconsistent. That’s just frustration.”
Meanwhile, rugby league legend Cooper Cronk echoed Chamers’ opinion and gave a damning assessment of the professional foul.
“He’s going to cop a gobful from Kevin Walters for that, that’s just dumb,” Cronk said.
“He didn’t have to do that and his team is under immense pressure for it.”
FOUR-POINT WIN
The Dragons were given no chance of playing finals this season under new coach Shane Flanagan, but they’re absolutely in contention with seven games to play.
This was their fourth win in six games and the victory has temporarily put them back in the top eight heading into the bye next week.
“We obviously know how close the top eight is and how important this game was going into a bye, it was a four-point game for us,” Dragons No. 6 Kyle Flanagan said.
“The ladder is so close so we needed to come up here and play well and our power game is our strength and that’s how we started.
“I definitely know the coach will be pretty disappointed with those last four tries, a few barge overs and that’s not us as a club.
“Looking back, as a spine we probably should have shut that game out earlier and not made it such a challenge in the last five minutes.”
Flanagan has steered the Dragons superbly during the Origin period without his halves partner and the club’s best player in Ben Hunt.
“Obviously when Benny is out I’ve got to find my voice a bit more and lead the boys around and I enjoyed that challenge,” Flanagan said.
“I like to think my best footy is ahead of me and that combination with Benny will continue to evolve over the next couple of years.”
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Source Agencies
