South Sydney Rabbitohs shocked their much-fancied bitter rivals Sydney Roosters with a 26-14 victory.
South Sydney opened the scoring through the boot of Adam Reynolds and continued to dominate the game straight through the middle in the opening quarter.
The likes of Damien Cook and Tom Burgess all made line breaks up the middle of the field. But the Rabbitohs couldn’t take their chances with their fifth-tackle options being an issue for the Bunnies.
The Chucks stayed in the game and were level through a Latrell Mitchell penalty.
Souths continued to lack quality. Alex Johnston looked to find an unmarked Robert Jennings but threw the ball into touch with the line in sight. The Roosters charged up the other end of the field. Tedesco broke from dummy half and on the next play, Luke Keary fed Mitchell who finished the opening try well.
Finally, South Sydney earned their reward for an excellent first-half showing when Cody Walker moved across the line and found Jennings who only needed to stroll in to level the scores at half-time at 8-8.
Reece Robinson and James Tedesco gifted four points to Souths when the winger missed a high ball, Tedesco cleared up but lost the ball in the in-goal, bounced it on the ground into the hands of Angus Crichton.
2018 has not seen the best form of Greg Inglis as of yet. But the big centre showed his class when he took a Walker bomb and crossed for Souths only two minutes later.
For the second week in a row, Ryan Matterson benefited from a Cooper Cronk chip to the corner. This time Joseph Manu batted the ball back for his second-row. But Souths pushed their lead back out to six with a Reynolds penalty.
They then further extended their advantage when John Sutton dummied and forced his way over after Inglis was held up by Victor Radley.
Radley almost gave his team hope after Cronk and Keary combined down the short side but Keary was ruled to have knocked the ball forward into Crichton before feeding Radley.
Roosters: Tedesco, Robinson, Mitchell, Manu, Ferguson, Keary, Cronk, Waerea-Hargreaves, Friend, Napa, Cordner, Matterson, Liu; Interchanges: Tetevano, Aubusson, Radley, Butcher
Tries: Mitchell, Matterson; Goals: Mitchell 3
Rabbitohs: Johnston, Kennar, Inglis, Gagai, Jennings, Walker, Reynolds, T Burgess, Cook, G Burgess, Sutton, Crichton, Clark; Interchanges: Doueihi, Nicholls, Tatola, Turner
Tries: Jennings, Crichton, Inglis, Sutton; Goals: Reynolds 5
Full match reports of all this weekend’s NRL games will feature in Monday’s League Express.
