St George Illawarra shocked little brother Cronulla 25-12 to open their 2013 NRL account, the Sharks night made worse with star playmaker Todd Carney helped from the field with a foot injury.
Without a win from the opening three games, the Dragons were given little chance before a bumper 20,130 fans at Sharks Stadium, but they bucked the trend with their most enterprising effort of the campaign.
The Sharks will be keeping their fingers crossed the loss isn't compounded by a serious injury to Carney, who had to be carried from the field late in the first half with what was diagnosed as a sprained foot.
Sydney Sharks coach Shane Flanagan refused to blame the strain the club has been under thanks to the drugs cloud surrounding the club for the letdown.
"I could toss that one up and that might be the case but I'm not going to throw it out there as an excuse," Flanagan said.
"The Dragons were good and they played with some attitude and we didn't have that."
On Carney, Flanagan was hoping for the best.
"He thought he heard something snap but it was his orthotic, that's how much power went through his foot," he said.
"They think it's a mid-foot sprain so it's nothing to do with his achilles or anything like that."
Asked about the relief in the Dragons dressing room, coach Steve Price said:
"I think there is (a feeling of relief) in the dressing room.
"It's not as if the boys haven't been trying, they've worked their backsides off over those losses and we fine-tuned a couple of things and we went out there and replicated that tonight."
Much-maligned five-eighth Jamie Soward was brilliant for the Dragons, scoring one try, nailing a couple of pressure-cooker sideline conversions and a late field goal, but it was the acrobatic genius of Jason Nightingale that had everybody talking.
The Kiwi winger contorted his body sensationally to nab two second half tries, the first with his entire body over the sideline and the second only millimetres inside the dead ball line as he chased a Nathan Fien kick to secure the win.
Having scored 11 first half points in total in their opening three games, the Dragons had 12 on the board inside the first 16 minutes to stun the Sharks Stadium full house.
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."
Proving far more adventurous with the ball, a Trent Merrin offload sent Fien under the posts and five minutes later Luke Lewis was made to pay for a dropped ball when Soward picked up the dregs and ran 85 metres to double the lead.
The sight of Carney being carried off could have knocked the stuffing out of the Sharks, but Ben Pomeroy came up with his own magic trick, tapping back a ball heading over the dead ball line for Jeff Robson to halve the deficit.
There was no let-up from the Dragons after the break as Nightingale took the visitors back out by two converted tries - Sharks fans revealing their ugly side as some threw what appeared to be tennis balls onto the field as Soward lined up the sideline conversion.
He nailed it to rub further salt into the wounds - as he did again when Nightingale scored his second out wide on 64 minutes after Andrew Fifita had dragged the Sharks back into the contest with a short-range four-pointer.
