Wayne Bennett won his first game against Brisbane Broncos since leaving them in the off-season after seeing his South Sydney Rabbitohs side win 38-6.
South Sydney and Brisbane swapped coaches after 2018 with Bennett moving down to Sydney and Anthony Seibold heading in the other direction.
Bennett won both battles against Siebold last year and it looked to be heading the same way when Cody Walker scored two tries in three minutes to get Souths going.
The first was in bizarre fashion. Alex Johnston kicked the ball on, after he lost possession, for Walker. Then the standoff got on the end of his own kick for his second.
The opportunist tries kept coming for the Bunnies when Adam Reynolds intercepted Anthony Milford’s play on the short side. In the shadows of half-time, Kyle Turner crossed through a hole opened up by James Roberts to make it 24-0 at the break.
The Broncos needed to score first after the break and they did just that through Corey Oates. But after Oates bombed a second try for the visitors, Souths finished off the game when Sam Burgess crossed and John Sutton crashed his way over the line.
Rabbitohs: Johnston, Allan, Turner, Gagai, Graham, Walker, Reynolds, Tatola, Cook, T Burgess, Sutton, S Burgess, Murray; Interchanges; G Burgess, Nicholls, Lowe, Knight
Tries: Walker 2, Reynolds, Turner, S Burgess, Sutton; Goals: Reynolds 7
Broncos: Boyd, Oates, Roberts, Bird, Isaako, Milford, Dearden, Lodge, McCullough, Haas, Glenn, Gillett, Pangai Jnr; Interchanges: Fifita, Flegler, Ofanehgaue, Carrigan
Tries: Oates; Goals: Isaako
Full match reports of all this weekend’s NRL games will feature in Monday’s League Express.
