It won’t silence all the critics, but St George Illawarra playmaker Jamie Soward hopes the Dragons’ breakthrough win over Cronulla shuts up at least a few naysayers.

The Dragons registered their first win of 2013 with a 25-12 victory over Cronulla on Saturday night, the first two competition points helping relieve some of the pressure which had been building on the club.

Aside from coach Steve Price, no-one had copped more of the brunt than the much-maligned Soward, who put together his best performance in a long time to help secure the win.

“One win doesn’t make your season but it definitely helps,” Soward said.

“We’ve been under the pump for a month, everyone’s been saying what they want to say, we don’t really care about it honestly.

“You’re never going to keep everyone quiet, you (the media) have to do your jobs and sell papers and we have to do our jobs and play footy.”

Asked if he thought some of the criticism, which had mainly been levelled at a struggling Dragons attack, had been fair, Soward said:

“When you’re not winning you’re going to get more criticism then when you’re winning.

“We’ve put in some good efforts, we’ve just been unlucky I think.

“It’s easy when we’re losing for people to come out and write bad stuff about the team and the coach.

“But morale’s good in the team, we’re not really worried about everyone else.

“We know the job we’ve got ahead of us, we’ve put ourselves in a tough position, tonight hopefully is the start of something good.”

As for the rubber ball which was thrown from the crowd as he lined up for a crucial sideline conversion, Soward said:

“It didn’t hit me, but when stuff like that happens, it’s unwarranted.

“What are they going to gain out of it?

“It didn’t put me off, I still kicked it. I love kicking them from the sidelines.”