St George Illawarra gave winning ugly a whole new definition as the Dragons made it five straight with a 13-12 NRL victory over Penrith at ANZ Stadium.

To say the red and whites were lucky would be an understatement, two tries in the blink of an eye just after halftime turning the game before Jamie Soward clinched the win with a field goal eight minutes from time.

Down 12-0 after a lacklustre first half, the Dragons looked no chance of securing their first five-match winning streak since 2006.

Then in the space of three minutes, the game turned, the Dragons going back-to-back to lock up the scores against a Penrith side which suddenly looked like it had run out of gas.

St George Illawarra's first try came via a terrific Ben Creagh run, Jarrod Sammut given no chance of stopping the runaway train as Creagh slammed the ball over the line.

Sammut was again caught out as a Soward chip kick from inside his own half, the headgeared No.6 regathering before finding Josh Morris.

Jason Nightingale knocked on from the kick-off but the Panthers had run out of legs, and on the back of a string of dubious penalties the Dragons marched downfield.

Showing a lack killer instinct, the Dragons went for a sideline penalty goal and a 68th minute field goal in a bid to break the deadlock, Soward making amends with his second attempt at the one-pointer four minutes later.

While the Panthers ushered in a new era by blooding gun youngsters Wade Graham and Masada Iosefa into the top grade, it was the Dragons who were out of sync to start the game after a backline reshuffle from coach Nathan Brown.

Test centre Mark Gasnier was moved to the wing in defence and fullback in attack, but it mattered little as Rhys Wesser opened the scoring after seven minutes when he backed up a bust from Panthers backrower Trent Waterhouse.

Unfortunately for the visitors, Wesser made his way up the tunnel shortly after, his night over due to an abdominal tear to force the Panthers into a reshuffle similar to that of the Dragons.

St George Illawarra turned up the heat defensively in a bid to find a spark, but it was the Panthers who had the better of the opportunities as they threatened a massive upset.

They were denied by some great poor finishing and desperate scrambling from the home side until Luke Lewis scored one of the softer tries of his career as he stepped over from short range.

"We definitely would have lost it at the start of the year," Brown said of his side's turnaround in fortunes.

"Everyone would acknowledge that we're definitely hanging in there better and playing a lot tougher.

"It wasn't by any means our greatest performance ... we just found a way to get to the front and then hang on."

The one negative for the Dragons was a back injury to Gasnier, but he said it was too early to speculate over his availability for Origin III on July 2.

"I'll have some scans on Monday. I'd be guessing if I thought how bad it was going to be," said Gasnier, who revealed the injury flared during training on Thursday and claimed he was a virtual passenger.

Panthers coach Matthew Elliott was fuming over what he believed was a match-turning missed penalty in the dying stages.

"We got penalised over in the corner for Frank Pritchard hitting Mark Gasnier in the hand and at the end of the game in front of the sticks Junior Moors got hit straight around the eyeballs and he didn't make a call," Elliott said.

"He doesn't make a call. How does that happen? I don't know.

"I'm frustrated ... I lost it in the box tonight and I feel that I had friends that lost it as well this evening."

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