
St George Illawarra Dragons recorded a comfortable 30-12 victory over Newcastle Knights to maintain their unbeaten start to 2018.
Newcastle got off to a great start when a flowing move to the left from a tap penalty found Tautau Moga and he stepped to find the line. After scoring, Moga had to leave the field with a suspected ACL injury sustained in scoring the try.
St George reacted well to the setback and were level when Tariq Sims came on to a flat Ben Hunt pass. Nene MacDonald then gave the Dragons the lead after he was found by a Tim Lafai flick pass.
St George were in their stride and added a third try when Dufty offloaded to Euan Aitken who strolled in.
Chris Heighington scored his first try since April 2015 when he came up on the inside of Mitchell Pearce.
A Gareth Widdop penalty gave the Dragons a 20-12 lead at half-time. And Leeson Ah Mau added to it when he barged his way over early in the second half.
MacDonald earned his second try of the game when he chased a Ben Hunt grubber and grounded the ball expertly to finish the game as a contest
Dragons: Dufty, MacDonald, Aitken, Lafai, Nightingale, Widdop, Hunt, Graham, McInnes, Vaughan, Frizell, Sims, de Belin; Interchanges: Leilua, Mann, Ah Mau, Latimore
Tries: Sims, MacDonald, Aitken, Ah Mau; Goals: Widdop 5
Knights: Ponga, Keeny-Dowall, Mata’utia, Moga, Ross, Lamb, Pearce, Ese’ese, Griffin, Lillyman, Fitzgibbon, Guerra, D Saifiti; Interchanges: Barnett, Buhrer, Heighington, J Saifiti
Tries: Moga, Heighington; Goals: Ponga 2
Full match reports of all this weekend’s NRL games will feature in Monday’s League Express