Barring a disaster from his side and a miracle from Manly, St George Illawarra are going to be in the NRL finals. How they stand to fare remains up for debate after a disappointing collapse against the Titans branded as 'unacceptable ' by coach Paul McGregor.
The Gold Coast gave their home fans a decent send-off with a 28-26 win at Robina but their season has long been over. The Dragons stand to fight another day and will finish in eighth spot unless the Sea Eagles can turn around a 61-point differential between the sides.
Manly must flog the Sharks and the Dragons must lose heavily to the Tigers for that to occur but common sense suggests McGregor's men have done enough to play in the post-season. But only just.
There were all sorts of concerns after the loss on the Gold Coast, against a side missing a huge armada of first-grade talent and one that was reduced to just one serviceable interchange player for most of the second half.
That they failed to close it out when leading by four points with 10 minutes to play was a concern, as was the 20 offloads for the Titans, who played like a team with nothing to lose.
McGregor was deeply disappointed afterwards, saying his side simply wasn't ready to tough it out at CBUS Super Stadium.
"We knew what was coming. We just didn't play any tough footy. We're not in the finals. Yet," McGregor said.
"A lot of things came really easy during the game early. We had some points on the board. But in all honesty, they had 20 offloads in a game of footy. It's way too many. They had three tries from kicks, two from dive overs. It's not acceptable.
"When you look at the tries that they scored, it wasn't good enough. We're all disappointed because it's not acceptable. We know that. It hurts. It hurts everyone."
This was one of those tricky end-of-season fixtures that always spelled danger for the Dragons. Captain Ben Creagh said they were fully aware of the potential traps but still couldn't get the job done with so much at stake.
"Unfortunately the past two weeks have been similar, when we've had that lead we haven't put the foot down, we've gone back into cruise control. It's something we haven't done before and something we have to fix up," Creagh said.
"This time of the year we have to be building pressure, getting leads and holding leads, kicking long and chasing hard. I think at times we're guilty of not doing that at the moment, just hoping that teams will go away.
"It doesn't work like that at this level. Teams like the Gold Coast, like Penrith last week, with nothing to lose, they're going to throw the ball around. What happened to us today can always happen."
The Titans didn't go away, with Dave Taylor scoring late and Kane Elgey, the young Titans halfback, cooly slotting the winning conversion. They Gold Coast may have missed out at Daly Cherry-Evans but they have a quality playmaker on their books already.
