Stand-in Titans skipper Preston Campbell says the most disappointing thing about Saturday night's loss to the Dragons is that they are no longer unbeaten at Skilled Park.
In just its second season in the NRL, Gold Coast went into the match with a 100 percent record from its seven previous matches this season at its permanent base, which only opened earlier this year.
But after an end-to-end battle in front of more than 27,000 fans, with the visitors enjoying plenty of support, St George Illawarra eventually grabbed its sixth win in a row and fourth from as many starts in two seasons against the newcomers.
"It's a bit disappointing, we thought we'd like to turn this into a bit of a graveyard," Campbell told Fox Sports. "The Dragons have been playing well, I don't think we've beaten them since the club's come about … so they've got the wood on us."
But while his team eventually surrendered the points, Campbell was proud of its effort considering Scott Prince and Anthony Laffranchi were absent on Origin duty and Luke Bailey among those sidelined by injury.
"Yeah I thought we put in a good effort," he said. "It was a tough game, to our credit we put in a good showing, we had a few blokes out but it was no excuse obviously. We just have to go in back to the sheds and think about next week I think."
Dragons five-eighth Jamie Soward turned in another eye-catching performance in the No.6 jersey, landing a perfect six-from-six with the boot and playing his part both in attack and defence, particularly in the frantic final minutes as his team won 26-22.
"(It's) tough coming up here, they haven't lost all year," Soward said. "You see blokes like (Johnathan) Thurston, they're the best in the game, he's always there scrambling so (I) sort of try and take a leaf out of his book and put myself in the right position."
While a late offload from Jason Ryles that went astray looked set to cost the visitors dearly before Michael Henderson knocked on playing the ball, Soward was delighted with both the boutique stadium and his team's defence.
"This stadium is unreal, it's probably the best I've played in," he said. "Their crowd really gets behind them and we're lucky we've got a couple of fans up here but what a stadium, it just lifts the game."
"At the end there Rylesy gave us a bit of a heart attack but he was great, Poorey (Justin Poore), all the boys have been really good the last two months so we just need to keep it up and front load our energy in the first 20 and not get ourselves in this position."