The NYC Newcastle Knights lost 48-18 to the St George Illawarra Dragons at Jubilee Oval on Sunday afternoon.
While the young Dragons sit in last place on the NYC ladder, they still blew away a Knights side looking to cement a spot in the top-eight thanks to their tricky outside backs.
With hooker Danny Levi and halfback Jack Cogger returning to the side, the Knights would have been confident of grabbing a win.
Instead it only took the Dragons six minutes to score when their right edge combined to make a brilliant play that was finished off by Izaac Thompson. Ryan James converted, and four minutes later the Knights were exposed on their left side again when halfback Jack Payne placed a bomb across the field that winger Tom Carr easily collected to score.
With the score 12-0, the Knights suddenly clicked into gear, Brock Lamb playing Luke Yates through a hole for the burly lock to run 20 meters and drag three defenders over the line. Lamb converted to halve the home side's lead, but soon after the Dragons grabbed another when hooker Ryan Fletcher forced his way over from dummy-half.
The Knights were close to scoring their second in the 25th minute when Yates again broke through the line, but his pass to Jacob Gagai proved too hard for the young centre to get a hold of.
Four minutes later the Dragons were over again when Carr grabbed his second with a 20 metre run down the touchline.
Carr made it a hat-trick three minutes later when he again found space down the right edge and Thompson converted to push the half-time score to 30-6.
The young Knights started the second half with renewed energy as Cogger dived over the line.
Video replays showed that he had been held up over the line though, and from there on in the Knights struggled to gain any sort of control.
In the 57th minute Jay Gallagher crashed over for the Dragons and then two minutes later Adam Clune pushed the score to 42-6 with a clever try.
The Knights bounced back via Josh King when the big prop scored in the 69th minute, but then five minutes later the Dragons scored again via halfback Payne.
Seconds before full-time Jacob Gagai grabbed a try back for the red and blues, but the final score was still a heavy 48-18.
SUMMARY
Dragons 48 (Thompson, Fletcher, Carr 3, Clune, Gallagher, Payne; G: James 8/8)
Knights 18 (T: Yates, King, Gagai; G: Lamb 3/3)
