It’s almost been a year to the day since Josh Dugan announced he was leaving St George Illawarra to take up the big bucks he believed he was worth at Cronulla.

But rising star Matt Dufty has proven to be worth the punt as his replacement after sparking the ladder leaders to a 25-18 win over Canberra on Sunday.

Both Dufty and the Dragons were in danger of dropping back-to-back defeats when they bumbled their way to a two-point deficit with 20 minutes to go in Mudgee.

However, the 22-year-old overcame an error-prone start to turn in arguably his best performance of his young career with two moments of individual brilliance in the clutch.

First he set up skipper Gareth Widdop with a clever kick ahead in a 50-metre movement early in the second half, before burning four defenders with his trademark speed to seal the victory.

Dufty admitted he had previously struggled with allowing errors to affect his game, but has revelled in the support of Widdop and the rest of his teammates.

“In (under) 20s, if I made an error it affected me for a while. But coming into grade, everyone makes errors and one error at the start of the game isn’t going to lose you the game,” he said.

“So you’ve just got to let it go. Especially when ‘Gaz’ and everyone are saying, ‘Duff, head up, we’ve got your back.’ It makes you feel better and makes you let things go a bit easier.”

He also said he had grown accustomed to being targeted by opposition teams because of his size.

On separate occasions against the Raiders he was on the receiving end of a high shot from Josh Papalii and a shoulder charge from Joseph Tapine that were both placed on report.

“Teams do that but that’s footy and that’s why we play, you love the contact and the collisions. It makes footy, footy. And if you can’t handle it, it’s not the sport for you,” Dufty said.

“We’ve got a big forward pack ourselves and when they tell you, ‘We’ve got your back, Duff’, it makes you feel a lot better.”

Dragons coach Paul McGregor was pleased to see Dufty bounce back from his disappointing start.

“Sometimes when you’re a young guy in the vigours of playing week to week NRL, when you come up with a couple of errors you can go quiet,” he said.

“But I thought Duff at different stages really grew and got us back in the game through sheer brilliance. He had a mixed day but he certainly makes a point of difference with that speed.”