St George Illawarra’s NRL season is officially on the skids after they were handed their biggest ever loss at Kogarah, flogged 38-0 by arch-nemesis Canterbury.

Beaten by the Bulldogs to end both their 2015 and 2017 campaigns, Sunday’s blow wasn’t as fatal but left them sixth and with their top-four hopes in tatters with just one round to play.

The record loss at the ground includes both the Dragons’ games there as St George prior to their merger, and since joining with Illawarra in 1999.

Centre Euan Aitken (hamstring), winger Jason Nightingale (elbow) and hooker Cameron McInnes (concussion) finished the game early, while No.1 Matt Dufty began the game on the bench after being bumped out of the fullback spot.

The Dragons were their own worst enemies with 14 errors, and were booed off the field halftime as they copped their second hammering by a bottom-eight team in three weeks.

Canterbury winger Reimis Smith scored a hat-trick, former Dragons Brett and Josh Morris both scored once while five-eighth Lachlan Lewis produced a kick for one try and and forced four line dropouts.

A top-four team for all but one of the first 23 rounds, the Dragons can only return there if they beat Newcastle convincingly next week and either Cronulla or South Sydney lose to their bottom-eight opponents.

The loss marked their sixth in eight weeks, was their biggest ever against Canterbury, and against any team at any ground in 12 years.

Off from the opening stages, the Dragons fell out of the match midway through the first half when the Bulldogs scored three tries in the space of 10 minutes.

Two of those came through Smith, who went 70 metres to score once and then snuck another one in with a left-handed put down just centimetres inside the right-edge touchline.

Smith then completed his hat-trick in the 65th minute when he again went 70 metres in almost identical fashion after Will Hopoate fielded a kick and put him in space.

Dragons Halfback Ben Hunt had a day to forget and was at one stage jeered by the home fans when he kicked the ball dead midway through the second half, just a set after he could only get his knee to a last-tackle play.

“He’s just absolutely so low on confidence at the moment … Origin footy, when he got dropped back to the bench for Game III has just zapped all his confidence,” rugby league Immortal Andrew Johns said in commentary

“When you’re out of form or out of confidence you just need to strip your game back. At the moment I’m not seeing that from Hunt.”