Melbourne Storm puts end to South Sydney's unbeaten form

SOUTH Sydney’s undefeated start to 2013 came to an end on Saturday night.

Rabbitohs v Storm

SOUTH SydneyÂ’s undefeated start to 2013 came to an end on Saturday night, going down to the clinical Melbourne Storm who are now the only undefeated team in the competition after six rounds.

In a relentless first half of football, Melbourne applied the blow-torch to the Bunnies through the boot of Test halfback Cooper Cronk, who continuously forced repeat sets on the Bunnies line.

Souths’ defence finally cracked in the 23rd minute under the weight of Melbourne’s blitzkrieg-like attack, with Kevin Proctor producing a huge fend on Greg Inglis to crash over for the first try.

Cronk continued to dominate in the back end of the half setting up another try for winger Mahe Fonua to take the score to 12-0 at half time.

After throwing everything at the Storm defence, The Bunnies finally returned serve eight minutes into the second half after a perfectly placed Adam Reynolds chip was plucked out of the air by Greg Inglis to touch down.

But the Storm weren’t done scoring. Another try to Gareth Widdop, and a late field goal through Cronk put the game beyond doubt. Andrew Everingham also touched down for the Bunnies to bring the final score to 17-12.

Despite the loss, Rabbitohs coach Michael Maguire praised his team’s efforts against their toughest opposition yet.

"The resilience of these boys is showing week in and week out now. We’re very pleased with how they’re fighting."  Said Maguire.

"It was a high quality game of footy. Our players committed hard to everything they did out there and it sort of came down to moments in the game which I guess the Storm have been doing for a long, long time.

"We’ve just got to make sure we take a lot out of that game and take that in to our next week."