Lachlan Coote’s golden-point field goal sealed a dramatic 13-12 win for the Panthers over St George Illawarra in Monday’s night’s encounter at in Penrith.

The win ended a run of eight successive home defeats for the Panthers, stretching back to round 19 last year, and vindicated Ivan Cleary’s controversial decision to dump NSW centre Michael Jennings to reserve grade.

The hosts laid the foundations for the win with two tries in as many first-half minutes from Ryan Simpkins and and Kevin Kingston as the Dragons, who were without injured five-eighth Jamie Soward, failed to fire in attack, just as they did in last week’s 30-6 loss to North Queensland.

Simpkins put the hosts in front with his first ever NRL try after 18 minutes after good work out of dummy-half from Kingston.

Kingston then doubled the lead in almost identical fashion, darting over from close range in front of the posts, allowing Blake Austin to kick his second goal of the game.

The Dragons finally troubled the scorers 13 minutes from time when Jake Marketo put the finishing touches to a well-worked move and Kyle Stanley added the extras to halve the deficit.

Mitch Rein then added a second five minutes from time after Dayne Weston was penalised for putting his hands in the ball as the Panthers desperately tried to repel the fast finishing Dragons.

Ben Hornby failed with a field goal for the Dragons in the extra period, but fullback Coote made no mistake with a 25-metre effort to delight the home crowd and seal a first win in six games for the Panthers.

Dragons coach Steve Price’s miserable evening was compounded by a serious looking knee injury to Michael Weyman, who was carried off after making a tackle on Josh Mansour early in the second half.

Utility Nathan Fien also limped off in the final minute of normal time leaving forcing prop Dan Hunt to fill the playmaker role in golden point.