Dragons defence lapse

It doesn't get any easier in Round 4 for the under pressure Dragons who now host the Sea Eagles at WIN Stadium on Saturday night - they are also coming off a loss.

Shane Flanagan will be hoping to have his hooker Jacob Liddle back after he missed the Cowboys match due to HIA protocols, while injured forwards Hame Sele and Jaydyn Su'A may be a chance to return.

A dominant first 20 minutes was not enough to propel the Dragons to a win as they led 18-4 midway through the first half, allowing North Queensland to pile on seven unanswered tries to secure their third win from the first three games of the NRL season.

Zac Lomax scored two tries and ran 142 metres with the ball in another impressive performance in his new position on the wing and coach Flanagan has to find a way to keep the disgruntled player happy to play out of his preferred position.

Debutante Jesse Marschke became St George Illawarra Dragon #274 as he made his way onto the historic Kogarah turf for his first taste of NRL action but his night was soured when he was placed on report for a high tackle on Cowboys halfback Chad Townsend with the Cowboys grabbing their second try off the back of it.

Dragons coach Shane Flanagan looked at the positives but couldn't deny there were some soft tries scored against them.

"I thought there was some really good patches of football, we looked sharp every time we got into good field position we scored tries but defensively we got blown away at the ruck so we need to do some work there.

"It is a new team, some new staff, new coaches and all so it's going to take some time but I'd like to think that we can be better than we showed defensively today.

"There was just some soft tries there," he said

"There's three or four on last tackle that we could have handled better and maybe at some points, the Cowboys competed harder than us."

It was better news in the juniors as young fullback Ben Rumble's first Jersey Flegg Cup game of the season was a successful one scoring four tries in the Dragons' 50-12 win over the Kaiviti Silktails.

It was a festival of culture, heritage, and inclusion within the League community at Jubilee Stadium with the Dragons and Fijian Silktails celebrating afterwards.