St George Illawarra coach Wayne Bennett knows a thing or two about defending an NRL title, and the game's most successful mentor likes what he's seeing from his Dragons after a 20-18 win against Newcastle on Sunday.

The Dragons were forced to call on all their premiership-winning strength as they withstood a furious Knights finish at Ausgrid Stadium, the home side coming from 20-6 down early in the second half to go within a whisker of causing a boilover.

And it was the same thing on which they built last year's breakthrough win that got them home - with their goal line defence at its impregnable best as the Knights threw everything they had at the red and white wall.

"That's what we built the team on and they continue to believe in it - it works for us," Bennett said of his side's defence.

It's a resilience that has Bennett thinking he can eke out one more premiership with the club before he sets sail for destination unknown at year's end, the Dragons striving to become the first side since Brisbane in 1992-93 to defend their title.

Bennett was at the helm of that Broncos side and also the one that won the 1997 Super League title and the unified competition in 1998, and he feels the Dragons are at least in with a shot of doing the same.

"It's probably the things I'm driving right now, my past experiences, the benefits of having done all that means that you know what works and what doesn't," Bennett said of the difficulties in going back-to-back.

"We're conscious of what does work and we failed other years when it didn't work for us (as Brisbane coach) as well in 2000 and 2006."

The Dragons should never have been in a position to surrender the game after Matt Cooper scored a dubious try just after halftime, when Knights centre Adam MacDougall appeared to have the ball stripped from him in a two-man tackle before Dean Young flicked the ball out to Cooper.

It was the second piece of misfortune for the Knights, who also had every reason to feel aggrieved at St George Illawarra's opening four-pointer when Darius Boyd scored after Jason Nightingale had taken out fullback Wes Naiqama as the Newcastle custodian attempted to defuse a bomb.

"I'm a little bit bemused by it to be honest, I thought Wes was put in a dangerous position," Knights coach Rick Stone said.

"I'm not sure whether that should have been a penalty as far as protecting the player's safety is concerned."

A piece of Mark Gasnier brilliance allowed the Dragons to stretch out to 14-0 before Chris Houston scored on halftime to get the home side within touching distance.

Cooper's try again put a gap between the sides before Cory Patterson and James McManus brought the Knights within two points with ten minutes remaining.

"If there was five more minutes to go I think we would have got them," Knights halfback Jarrod Mullen said.

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