Anthony Seibold era off to perfect start as Rabbitohs beat Wigan 18-8 at ANZ Stadium
THE Anthony Seibold era got off to a near perfect start with a severely understrength South Sydney side beating English Super League high flyers Wigan 18-8.
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THE Anthony Seibold era got off to a near perfect start with a severely understrength South Sydney side beating English Super League high flyers Wigan 18-8.
With the likes of Adam Reynolds, Greg Inglis, Dane Gagai, Sam Burgess, Cody Walker and Angus Crichton watching on the Rabbitohs raced in four tries to two to impress in Seibold’s first match at the helm.
The result in front of 18,721 people completed a clean sweep for Australian sides against the touring English teams.
The Rabbitohs had injury concerns with Campbell Graham (hand) and Hymel Hunt (hamstring) while Crichton (Achilles) hurt himself at training.
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Seibold said he was “really pleased” with his team’s first outing under his watch.
“I wanted to expose some of our younger guys and give them an opportunity to play against an international team,” Seibild said.
“A lot of our guys had only play under-20s or NSW Cup.”
Fill-in skipper Jason Clark said Seibold was “calm” before the match.
“He didn’t show too much emotion,” Clark said.
“He said what was needed. He got the message across and left it to the leaders who were in the team and the (players) in key positions. “
Wigan opened the scoring via a winger Tom Davies after just six minutes but South Sydney recovered after their slow start with Thomas Burgess crossing from short range before Campbell Graham finished off a Hymel Hunt line-break to cross out wide.
The Warriors were reduced to 12 men when Liam Marshall was sin-binned with the Rabbitohs making them pay when Richie Kenner crossed two minutes later.
Davies scored his second before half-time with the Rabbitohs leading 12-8 at the break.
Mark Nicholls continued his impressive performance with a late off-load to set up Adam Doueihi for the only second half try.
Seibold remained undecided if he would play both Robbie Farah and Damien Cook in the 17 after the pair again shared the hooking duties.
“In an ideal world you want to play a hooker for 80 minutes,” Seibold said.
“We will have a good think about it. It’s a good problem for us to have.”