Wendell Sailor scored a double to lead a depleted St George Illawarra to a 38-10 victory over Penrith in their NRL clash at WIN Stadium in Wollongong on Friday night.

The Dragons brushed off the fact that they were severely weakened from Origin selection to romp to a seven tries to two victory over the Panthers, ending the visitors' four-match winning streak.

It was a close contest up until halftime, when score was 12-6 in the Dragons' favour, but the home side ran away with the match in the second half, scoring five tries.

Sailor showed that while the stars were away the old man could play, the chunky winger celebrating his 42nd minute try in style after running over the top of defender Lachlan Coote at full pace, just five metres out from the line.

Penrith scored their only try of the second half through stand-in skipper Frank Pritchard in the 53rd minute to make it 18-10.

Dual international Sailor, who has been outscored in recent weeks by young winger Brett Morris, picked up a double and set the adoring home crowd alight when his 63rd minute try was converted to put the Dragons out in front by 14 points.

Michael Lett then scored his first try of the season, Soward also picked up a try and Nick Emmit iced the impressive win for the Dragons with a four-pointer with just seconds left in the match.

Morris was outstanding for the home side. He looked dangerous in attack, making plenty of metres as he swatted off attempted tacklers with ease.

The Dragons opened the scoring in the 12th minute when five-eighth Soward sent a cross-field kick which found Beau Scott who scooped up the ball on a lucky bounce and ran along the sideline to score just inside the chalk.

Soward was at it again just four minutes later when he put up a pinpoint bomb for a leaping Ben Hornby, who won the ball in a mid air contest with Penrith fullback Jarrod Sammut.

After watching two Dragons tries coming from kicks, Luke Walsh set up Wade Graham in the 27th minute with a perfectly waited bomb and Sammut converted to take the Panthers 12-6 down at the break.

Penrith coach Matt Elliott said his team failed to adjust to not having the services of Petero Civoniceva, Michael Jennings, Luke Lewis and Trent Waterhouse, but paid full credit to St George.

"The opposition was fantastic ... so we got, the players got a good lesson in how to handle not having your best players there, so did the coaching staff," Elliott said.

"So job well done to Saints, they were very very professional."

Wayne Bennett, for years at the helm of Brisbane who wear the full effect of the representative season, took the Dragons victory in his stride.

"They're always pretty special wins when you know that some of the players are missing, other guys will put their hands up," Bennett said.

"It's always difficult ... they're pretty brave guys these fellas here, they just played as good as they could with what they had."

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