Two veteran Dragons were denied what would have been stunning four-pointers tonight at Energy Australia Stadium, but there was no denying a white-hot St George-Illawarra, who surged to their seventh straight win, downing Newcastle 24-16.
Former dual-international Wendell Sailor and the man booted out of the Knights lineup in most acrimonious circumstances, Kirk Reynoldson, both looked set to cross for memorable first-half four-pointers, but both came up agonisingly short.
Sailor intercepted a Jarrod Mullen bomb 30m out from his own tryline in the 34th minute and, with nothing but space ahead of him, had a clear run to the line.
Big Dell pinned the ears back and set sail for the corner, but he was run down by the younger legs of Mullen and forced into touch.
Sailor claimed after the match that he was "shattered" to miss out on scoring the try.
"Nine times out of ten I usually score that," he said.
"I felt like I was running on a treadmill that last 20 metres ... I was pretty shattered, I thought I should have scored that."
Dragons prop Dan Hunt put Reynoldson into a yawning gap in the 24th minute, it looked like the Knights discard was going to gain the ultimate revenge over his former club.
Tragically, Reynoldson fell over inches short of the line after beating fullback Wes Naiqama with a clever dummy.
"I have never thrown a dummy in my life," he explained after the game.
"I had post-try celebrations running through my head. The line was coming up and I just stumbled."
But the near-missed proved no impediment to a seventh straight win for the visitors, who outclassed a determined but wasteful Knights outfit on their home turf.
Chase Stanley crossed shortly after the Reynoldson miss to extend the visitors early 2-nil lead, albeit amid controversy.
Stanley was given the benefit of what looked to be some serious doubt when the ball appeared to have been dislodged from his outstretched arm in a desperate cover tackle from Mullen, but video referee Phil Cooley awarded the four-pointer.
To rub salt into the wound, Soward was spot-on with the extras from the touchline and the Dragons had an 8-nil advantage after 27 minutes.
Newcastle had the chance to hit back in the shadows of half time with successive sets at the Dragons line, but a dropped ball from Chris Houston with the home side deep on the attack was to prove costly.
Within the blink of an eye, the Dragons had broken out of their own quarter courtesy of a deft inside ball from Rangi Chase to Brett Morris.
Morris surged up over half-way before linking with brother Josh, who streaked away to deliver a cruel blow to the Knights on the stroke of half time, with Soward's conversion extending the visitors lead to 14.
Jamie Soward produced some light-stepping early in the 45th minute to cross and extend the Dragons lead, before comfortably adding the extras to extend the joint-venture's lead to 20-nil.
It was starting to get embarrassing for the Knights when Jason Ryles powered his way over from close range to make it 24-nil, but the home side weren't done with yet.
A cleverly worked short side play from the Knights resulted in a try to Junior Sau, with Kurt Gidley giving the home side a glimmer of hope after nailing the conversion from the touchline.
The Knights made an impressive line break shortly after the restart, and when pocket-rocket Sau dragged Soward with him over the line to notch up his second try in four minutes, Newcastle were back in the contest at 24-10.
Newcastle almost made it three tries in the space of nine minutes when Adam MacDougall came up with a clever bat-on to James McManus to go over, but the touch judge controversially ruled the play forward, halting the Newcastle momentum in its tracks.
The home crossed for a consolation through everywhere-man Kurt Gidley in the closing stages, but it was impossible to take anything away from the Dragons seventh straight win.
Knights coach Brian Smith was less than impressed fuming at the performance of referee Sean Hampstead, but said the key point of the match was the long-range try to Morris just before halftime.
"The try just before the break was telling," said Smith.
"I thought there were a lot of things (referee decisions) that went against us. A lot of things went against us."
ST GEORGE ILLAWARRA 24 (C Stanley J Morris J Soward J Ryles tries J Soward 4 goals) bt NEWCASTLE 16 (J Sau 2 K Gidley tries K Gidley 2 goals) at EnergyAustralia Stadium. Referee: S Hampstead Crowd: 22,348.
: 22,348