Injury woes strike brave Titans in narrow 18-16 loss to Rabbitohs in Sam Burgess’s 150th game
THE NRL’s penalty crackdown turned farcical on Friday night after Titans forward Keegan Hipgrave was sin-binned twice in the Gold Coast’s 18-16 loss to South Sydney.
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THE NRL’s penalty crackdown turned farcical on Friday night after Titans forward Keegan Hipgrave was sin-binned twice in the Gold Coast’s 18-16 loss to South Sydney.
In just his 11th NRL game, Hipgrave spent 20 mins on the sidelines for two separate offences as the Rabbitohs snuck home for their sixth straight win despite missing four Origin stars.
Only five penalties were awarded in Origin I on Wednesday night in a free-flowing contest at the MCG, but referees Grant Atkins and Phil Henderson went back to their controversial ways in front of 11,833 at Cbus Super Stadium on Friday night in blowing 16 penalties.
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The Titans conceded 12 penalties and the 21-year-old Hipgrave bore the brunt of the crackdown, sent for two 10-minute spells following minor infringements which allowed the Rabbitohs to score two tries.
“With all due respect, I’m making no comment on the refereeing tonight,” Titans coach Garth Brennan said.
“We need to be better in certain areas. We made too many mistakes.
“We’ve got to keep working hard on it. That’s how we fix it. The personnel is who we’ve got.
“Having 12 men for 20 minutes is hard against an attacking side like that. They have put some scores on sides that have had 13 men on the park.”
Hipgrave became the first player to be sin-binned twice in the same game since Parramatta’s Michael Buettner in 2002.
The sin-binnings proved crucial as South Sydney capitalised without Origin representatives Greg Inglis, Dane Gagai, Angus Crichton and Damien Cook.
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The Titans had Queensland forwards Jarrod Wallace and Jai Arrow on deck and captain Ryan James produced an inspirational performance following his Origin snubbing with two tries.
But the Gold Coast’s weak defence, which is the worst in the NRL, was costly as the Titans slumped to their seventh loss in eight games against the top-four Rabbitohs.
“It was a really scrappy game,” Rabbitohs coach Anthony Seibold said.
“I’m pleased with the result but we were really disappointed with our performance.
“There were no excuses. We weren’t good enough holding on to the footy. We need to be better.
“The Origin players all wanted to play. It was my decision (to rest them). We want to manage the loads of our Origin players.”
The Titans looked on song early when winger Phillip Sami scored and they could have had a handy lead if Hipgrave and Dale Copley didn’t butcher a certain try.
Souths hit back through Adam Doueihi and five-eighth Cody Walker exposed some horrible Titans defence when he crossed untouched after Hipgrave was binned for being offside in the 17th minute.
James barged over to make it 10-all at the break but the Rabbitohs struck again through Alex Johnston when Hipgrave was marched for stripping the ball just four minutes into the second half.
The Titans trailed 18-16 when James charged over for his second but they could not find the killer blow despite dominating possession in the final 20 minutes as a series of 50-50 calls went against the home side.
SOUTH SYDNEY 18 (A Doueihi A Johnston C Walker tries A Reynolds 3 goals) bt GOLD COAST 16 (R James 2 P Sami tries M Gordon 2 goals) at Cbus Super Stadium. Referee: Phil Henderson, Grant Atkins. Crowd: 11,833.
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Originally published as Injury woes strike brave Titans in narrow 18-16 loss to Rabbitohs in Sam Burgess’s 150th game