Back in the Hunt: Dragons turn on the style
Steve Kilgallon
March 28, 2011
Warriors 12 Dragons 25
DAN HUNT, a shaven-headed, 107-kilogram front-rower who unexpectedly proved to have hands as soft as a baby's bum, admitted he'd never thrown so many offloads.
Meet the free-wheeling, ball-playing Dragons. By half-time, the team trounced by the Sharks last week was already 18-0 up, and had squeezed the ball from the tackle 16 times. And twice, those passes were remarkable try-making efforts from Hunt, who played just 10 times last season and missed the grand final with a ruptured Achilles.
And no, Wayne Bennett said, this flamboyance wasn't part of the plan. "It was not something they [the Warriors] would worry about playing the Dragons, we're not known as a second-phase team,'' he said. "They would be as surprised as I was.''
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In reality, the victory was founded on traditional Dragons values: mistake-free, relentless football, with Nathan Fien and Jamie Soward sharp and direct in a faultless opening 30 minutes that crushed the winless Warriors.
Their forwards, where Hunt was ably aided by Trent Merrin and debutant David Gower, punched holes up the middle. Their outside backs so outfoxed the Warriors that home coach Ivan Cleary yanked left centre Joel Moon after 20 minutes. And Hunt threw two particularly fine passes in heavy traffic.
Jason Nightingale scored the first two tries, Soward had one ruled out by video referee Chris Ward, and even with the more heavyweight Lewis Brown to oppose, rather than Moon, Matt Cooper barged across for the third, and with 25 minutes gone, so was the game.
"Our performance last week was rubbish,'' explained Fien, who has now won on 16 of his 22 outings as a Dragon. "But we didn't want to come out in the media and say we will do this and that, because we knew what we had to do. [We started with] pretty much mistake-free footy, and that hasn't happened this season.''
The Dragons were without Michael Weyman, but didn't miss him, thanks to Hunt and co. Fien, who was on the end of his best work, said: "'Bubsy' [Hunt] is going really well - he was our leading forward last year before he got injured, and we really felt for him. He's worked really hard.
''That kind of [offload] stuff comes off building pressure and playing mistake-free footy, and that's what we haven't done this season - getting into that grind.''
Hunt seemed to revel in the pack leader's role. "I'm just happy to be out there,'' he said. ''I don't take it for granted
to have the extra responsibility, I do thrive on it.''
The Warriors resumed in the second half with more purpose, Ben Matulino crashing over, but then they conceded the softest try of the day, when Kevin Locke's defensive misread made it easy for Kyle Stanley. Essentially, that was it, barring Hunt showing a more usual aspect of the front-rower's art when he coathangered Warriors half Brett Seymour, a late try from home hooker Shaun Berrigan and Soward's soothing field goal.
The Dragons seem unperturbed that the most talked-about transfer speculation of the season doesn't concern Greg Inglis or Jamal Idris but a balding, wizened bloke who last pulled on a jumper in 1979. "We keep that stuff away from how we play footy,'' offered Stanley. Fien offered a lengthier answer, but subtly sidestepped any speculation about Bennett's successor. And the man himself? "I'm not talking about it,'' Bennett said.
The other question that went unanswered was just how Hunt got those burly arms free so often, and it was still exercising the Warriors afterwards. "Good question actually - I probably can't answer that just yet,'' Brown said.
