St George Illawarra's once-maligned attack produced one of the most complete performances of the NRL season on Saturday, beating Manly 35-10.
Captain Gareth Widdop amassed 19 points and his halves partner Josh McCrone set up four tries in a dominant display at Brookvale Oval.
In further good news for the Saints, Origin forward Tyson Frizell is expected to be fit to face North Queensland next week despite suffering an oblique muscle strain in the first half.
Tipped to finish near the bottom of the ladder at the start of the season, the Dragons now sit atop the table before undefeated Melbourne's grand final rematch with Cronulla on Sunday.
St George Illawarra completed at 91 per cent - the highest of any team this year - and made just three errors.
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"I think that's our best performance of the year, certainly," coach Paul McGregor said.
"We threw the ball around a fair bit when we did have the ball and offloaded early.
"It's good that the boys have the confident in their playing ability and a clear mind around how we're playing."
Widdop's haul also moved him to second on the list of all-time point-scorers for the Dragons, courtesy of his two tries, five goals and one field goal.
"Gareth's been in the best form of his career the whole year, not just today," McGregor said.
"He's continued on from what he did last week, and the week before that and the week before that."
Conversely, Manly looked nothing like the team that beat North Queensland, Canterbury and the Sydney Roosters.
"We looked flat, and unenthused - which is probably the complete opposite of the past three weeks," coach Trent Barrett said.
"It's not good enough ... To concede that many points in a game is not on."
After conceding a controversial try in the third minute, they appeared to be playing catch-up football for the remainder of the match.
No-one made it to dummy-half for Manly as Matthew Wright played the ball on his own line, allowing Widdop to scoop the ball up from marker and score.
The video referee awarded the try, but Manly skipper Daly Cherry-Evans protested he had been denied the chance to make a tackle when Dragons winger Jason Nightingale appeared to hold him off the ball.
However the bunker couldn't rule on the incident as it was before the play-the-ball.
"It's a pretty big one when the dummy-half can't get to dummy-half and they score," Barrett said.
"We were flat off the kick-off, and to cop that off the end of that was very deflating."
