St George Illawarra survive late South Sydney comeback to win 16-12, stay unbeaten
IT got a little hairy at times, but when the dust settled the Dragons held on for a 16-12 win over South Sydney to remain unbeaten.
Dragons
Don't miss out on the headlines from Dragons. Followed categories will be added to My News.
THEY turned back the clock at Jubilee Oval.
What defence. What attitude. What spirit.
What a game.
Who says you need a thousand penalties to make modern rugby league a better spectacle.
The penalty count finished eight apiece.
And while it was noticeable the refs turned a blind eye to their crackdown on teams being offside, it didn’t seem like many in the crowd of 16,709 complained on their way out the gates.
DENVER: Administrators claim Test is “deeply flawed”
REBOUND: Roosters back on track against Sharks
At the famous old ground that produced so many wonderful memories over the years, St George Illawarra held on for a gutsy 16-12 victory over South Sydney that Paul McGregor rated as good as any in his side’s unbeaten five match start.
“We wouldn’t have won that game last year in fact we didn’t win that game against Souths last year,” McGregor said.
“It tells me we are going to the right places.
“These games are what you can build your year on, absolutely.
“We know we can play footy when we have got it.
“But defensively we have kept another team under 16 points which is our goal.
“That’s five weeks in a row in the NRL … so yeah, it is up there with any of them. It is as good as winning by 50, that’s for sure.”
But in no way can you underestimate the mighty performance of the Rabbitohs who pushed the competition leaders right to line after falling behind 16-2 in the 52nd minute.
At one stage in the first half the Dragons had a 70-30 split of possession but by fulltime it was just about even, with the Rabbitohs just ahead with a 51-49 per cent split.
Without their inspirational forward leader Sam Burgess (suspended), the Rabbitohs couldn’t have tried harder and probably would have beaten most NRL rivals on the night.
They bravely fought back with tries to Cody Walker and Greg Inglis in the final eight minutes but an unlucky knock on by Walker in the 78th minute ended their hopes of scoring a memorable win.
“We certainly didn’t get beaten on effort,” Anthony Seibold said.
“But we are not happy with the result.
“We came here to get the job done and we didn’t get it done and I think probably everyone can see tonight our execution in attack wasn’t good enough.”
But considering they went so close against the current competition leaders without their forward leader surely has to give the Rabbitohs’ fans plenty of hope moving forward.
Both teams copped some questionable calls with a disallowed try to Nene MacDonald denied because of an obstruction the most controversial.
This time Tariq Sims was the offender when he ran into the line and made contact with Reynolds.
It was probably a fair call from the bunker to overturn the live onfield “try” decision because Reynolds was slightly impeded.
But the problem was anyone who had seen the try awarded to Canterbury’s Moses Mbye back in round three would have been scratching their heads to explain how that was allowed and this one wasn’t.
“I’m as confused as you are,” McGregor said.
In his 250th NRL game, Jason Nightingale came up with two ripper try saving tackles on Damien Cook and Robert Jennings that proved crucial to the final result.
ST GEORGE ILLAWARRA 16 (E Aitken M Dufty tries G Widdop 4 goals) bt SOUTH SYDNEY 12 (G Inglis C Walker tries A Doueihi A Reynolds goals) at UOW Jubilee Oval. Referee: Gavin Badger, Peter Gough. Crowd: 16,709