Raiders maintain hoodoo over Dragons

Raiders match-winner Josh Dugan.

It seemed Jamie Soward could do ANYTHING with his right foot and a football – even end a 4041-day hoodoo. That was until Josh McCrone came along and made the Dragons relive their Canberra nightmares all over again.

McCrone trumped his opposite number’s miraculous 79^th minute, 40-metre field goal by rolling in a grubber for Josh Dugan to score the match-winning try in the final minute of the Raiders’ 24-19 victory at Canberra Stadium tonight.

The Dragons looked set to score their first win in the nation’s capital since July 1, 2000 when Soward potted a point from 40m out with less than a 100 seconds on the clock to make the score 19-18.

The NSW Origin pivot had earlier put on a clinic of general kicking before seemingly sealing his side’s drought-breaking triumph.

However, the Raiders got the ball back from a short kick-off via a Mark Gasnier fumble and advanced to field goal range, where McCrone gathered on the fifth tackle, avoided the oncoming defence and put in a kick.

Dugan, who made his Origin defence earlier this year, won the race to the ball and touched down to maintain his club’s dominance over the defending errors.

The dynamic fullback admitted the result looked unlikely after the Dragons led 18-6 at halftime.

“We stuck at it for the whole game, to the boys’ credit they stuck at it full the full 80,” Dugan said.

“We clawed our way back in and put them under some pressure and it worked.”

The Dragons looked like two-time premiers-in-waiting in the first stanza, with their left edge of Matthew Cooper and Brett Morris in devastating form while Soward’s boot caused havoc amongst the Raiders’ back three.

Incredibly, the Dragons put together a perfect 20-from-20 completion rate in the first 40 minutes, during which Morris, Cooper, Ben Creagh and Gasnier crossed the line while McCrone scored for the Raiders.

Although his general kicking was dynamic, Soward completed just one of four conversions.

The Raiders knotted the scores at 18-18 in the 63^rd minute after Jason Croker’s sideline conversion of Blake Ferguson’s try, which came after a solo effort from Dugan in the 52^nd minute.