Dragons win eases Creagh's pain - Sports News - Fanatics - the world's biggest events

Dragons win eases Creagh's pain

By Steve Jancetic 27/06/2009 01:58:07 PM Comments (0)

It hardly erased all the demons, but St George Illawarra's comfortable win over Wests Tigers on Friday night did help end a week of torment for Dragons and NSW backrower Ben Creagh.

Creagh, by his own admission, produced an Origin II shocker as the Blues capitulated to hand Queensland a fourth-straight series win, Creagh left lamenting several costly errors including the one which led to Darren Lockyer's embarrassing four-pointer.

The clash with the Tigers couldn't come soon enough for Creagh, and he didn't disappoint as he terrorised the home side's right-edge defence in a Herculean 80-minute performance.

"I was very disappointed after Wednesday night's performance - both personally and for the team," Creagh said after the Dragons fifth win from their last six starts.

"It was good to come back here to the club, back with your mates and have a good hit-out.

"It was really hard dealing with the loss, my second time playing for NSW and I didn't have my best game - I played really bad actually.

"Losing the series, it was pretty tough after the game on Wednesday night and pretty tough yesterday.

"Today wasn't too bad because there was a game on ... it was just so good to come back here and get a game under the belt and get the two points, it's what I needed."

Of his Origin II performance, Creagh said the nightmare was ongoing.

"I couldn't hold onto the ball a few times," he said.

"I was just replaying things in my head that I did wrong - the Lockyer try and not being able to grab the ball, dropping a pass from Baz (Trent Barrett), just little stuff like that you can't do in Origin and I don't do in club footy."

Much of the speculation after Origin II has centred on the future of NSW coach Craig Bellamy, but Creagh said the grand-final winning coach was not to blame for the side's failings.

"I didn't read a paper, I didn't watch the news or anything after the game because I knew what it would all be about," he said.

"It definitely wasn't Bellyache's fault, he's a great coach ... he prepared us so well during the week, he covers every base.

"We just really let ourselves down that first 20 minutes and you can't play catch-up footy in Origin."

Creagh's NSW teammates Michael Weyman (ankle) and Justin Poore (knee) both failed to return after limping from the field against the Tigers, but Dragons coach Wayne Bennett said neither was a concern.

"(Weyman) came into the game with a swollen ankle from Wednesday night and he just aggravated it - we got 20 minutes out of him and that's probably what we were hoping for," Bennett said.

"Poore was just exhausted - I played him all the first half and it was an enormous effort from him."

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