Titans star ran for 344 metres … but still ended up on the losing side

Hands up who has watched a rugby league match this year with one eye on the game and the other on the mobile phone, where live fantasy scores or betting markets capture the addicted? Shamefully, guilty as charged.

It’s easy to do. The proliferation of fantasy sports has never been higher, and the temptation to make a quick buck by betting on the action is never far away, particularly for young 20-somethings.

On Sunday, there was a set of numbers so mesmerising you couldn’t stop thumbing through for updates: Keano Kini’s running metres.

From his very first touch of the game, a kick return in which he started on his own five-metre line and scorched downfield to set up Jojo Fifita’s opening try, the Titans fullback kept ticking over and over to the point where you had to remind yourself the most important stat in the game was the actual score.

By day’s end, the tiny sensation ended up with 344 metres, according to the NRL’s official stats provider – a smidgen shy of Clint Gutherson’s NRL record (370) but a new Titans club mark.

He still lost.

Keano Kini ran for a staggering 344 metres.Credit: Getty Images

It doesn’t matter how many eye-popping individual statistics a player has, rugby league is often a game of intangibles, only noticed watching the game rather than looking at a phone: the last-ditch tackle Tyrell Sloan made on him to save a try, or when the Dragons fullback swatted a Titans penalty touchfinder back in play, or when Luciano Leilua grabbed a bouncing ball from the kick-off and sped downfield, or the tackle Jack Bird makes to stop a certain Gold Coast try.

They’re the measures that really count. The Dragons won them, and there was nothing the NRL’s hottest running man could do about it.

“We had every reason to fold,” shrugged St George Illawarra coach Shane Flanagan after the crucial 32-16 victory at a windy WIN Stadium. “But we showed some real resilience to turn them away. We showed some [mental toughness] today.”

You get the sense no one is too keen to say it out aloud, but the Dragons are edging closer to breaking a six-year finals drought. They’re back into eighth spot, two points clear of the fading Dolphins (who have a better points differential) with St George Illawarra to play the Sharks, Eels and Raiders to finish the year. Two wins will get them there, maybe even one. As the coach says, their destiny is in their own hands.

Dragons stars Tyrell Sloan and Ben Hunt celebrate a try.Credit: Getty Images

But like a lot of what the Dragons do, it was done the hard way.

After Kini’s solo burst to set up the first try inside 70 seconds, the Dragons rode a howling southerly breeze back into finals favouritism as they piled on five unanswered tries for a 26-6 lead at half-time. Ben Hunt was the coolest head when everyone around him threatened to lose them.

But it turned. It always does with the NRL’s best Jekyll and Hyde impersonators, who were forever pinned inside their own half after the break as the Titans took advantage of the massive gusts. Only this time, the Dragons largely maintained the rage in defence.

Kieran Foran’s 300th game was like the 299 before it, taking the ball deep into the line and getting whacked. This time, Jack de Belin was adjudged to have got him high and he spent 10 minutes in the sin-bin. The Dragons stopped the Titans from scoring though, and that was the difference.

“In the first half there is probably one or two tries they probably shouldn’t have got,” Titans coach Des Hasler said. “If we had done that and been better, I think the scoreboard pressure might have been a bigger issue in the second half.”

For some the biggest issue might have been Kini’s shot at re-writing rugby league history, a nod to the American sports where there’s a statistic for everything. But in Australian culture, the team always comes first, and the Titans’ season is now done, while the Dragons march on.

“His progression has been really exciting,” Hasler said of Kini, who left AJ Brimson on the bench until the last quarter. “His prospects are really bright.”

On Kini setting up the first try, Flanagan said: “We would have watched it 15 times in video during the week. For it to happen first set, I couldn’t believe it to be honest.”

But maybe not as hard to believe as the Dragons nearly being there when it comes to emerging from the finals wilderness in their first year under Flanagan.

And that’s something worth putting the phone down for.

ST GEORGE ILLAWARRA DRAGONS 32 (Christian Tuipulotu, Ben Hunt, Zac Lomax, Toby Couchman, Luciano Leilua, Francis Molo tries; Lomax 4 goals) defeated GOLD COAST TITANS 16 (Jojo Fifita 2, Jayden Campbell tries; Campbell 2 goals) at WIN Stadium. Referee: Wyatt Raymond. Crowd: 9240.

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