Canterbury Bulldogs beat St George Illawarra Dragons 38-0 to dent the Dragons’ hopes of finishing in the top four when the regular season ends next week.
While the Bulldogs have really hit form recently to move away from the wooden spoon, the Dragons have now slipped to sixth after leading the competition for much of the season.
The Bulldogs scored the opening try of the game when Lachlan Lewis kicked in behind for Josh Morris. Then Canterbury scored a belter to extend their lead. Offloads from Will Hopoate and Kerrod Holland set Reimis Smith free. He took on Matt Dufty and just beat him for pace.
Smith then showed more skills with his second try. He lifted his feet perfectly to score in the corner under pressure.
The Bulldogs slotted a penalty in the early minutes of the second half to gain a four-try lead. But it took until the 65th minute for Canterbury to seal the game and they did so in style. Smith ran through, stepped Dufty and went in under the posts for his hat-trick.
Brett Morris got himself on the scoresheet with five minutes to go and Ofahiki Ogden scored his first NRL try to seal the rout.
Dragons: Nightingale, Pereira, Aitken, Lafai, MacDonald, Mann, Hunt, Graham, McInnes, Frizell, Leilua, Sims, de Belin; Interchanges: Dufty, Ah Mau, Latimore, Host
Bulldogs: Hopoate, B Morris, J Morris, Holland, Smith, Lewis, Frawley, Tolman, Lichaa, Klemmer, Jackson, Martin, Elliott; Interchanges: Marshall-King, Fualalo, Ogden, Eastwood
Tries: J Morris, Smith 3, B Morris, Ogden; Goals: Holland 7
Full match reports of all this weekend’s NRL games will feature in Monday’s League Express.