Brave Inglis inspires South Sydney Rabbitohs in victory over Eels

GREG Inglis turned into South Sydney's one-armed bandit as the Rabbitohs heaped more pressure on Eels coach Stephen Kearney.

GREG Inglis turned into South Sydney's one-armed bandit as the Rabbitohs compounded Parramatta's season of misery to heap more pressure on coach Stephen Kearney.

All the hype might have been focussed on live-wire halfback Sandow's return clash with the Rabbitohs but it was Inglis and the halfback who replaced Sandow who stole this show.

Leading 18-6 with 12 minutes remaining, rookie half Reynolds produced a sensational 85m cover tackle on a runaway Sandow to end any hope of an Eels miracle fightback.

It was shades of Penrith grand final hero Scott Sattler on Todd Byrne in the 2003 NRL decider.

GALLERY: RABBITOHS V EELS

"About 30m to go I really thought I was gaining on him. I thought he got a bit tired and I was slowly getting closer to him," Reynolds said.

"The last 10m I knew I had him and I knew I just had to make good contact on him.

"We spoke about it after the game and had a bit of a laugh about it.

"It's a bit funny because I got caught by Ben Hannant the other week so I think I got that tag off my back hopefully."

The play almost overshadowed the performance of Inglis, who strained the medial ligament in his left elbow in the 22nd minute before turning on a one-armed masterclass.

As the saying goes, the best athletes can play hurt.

With South Sydney's Hollywood star co-owner Russell Crowe watching in the stands for the first time this season, Inglis underlined his enormous standing in the NRL by laying on two tries and producing a ball-and-all try-saver on Eels hooker Matt Keating.

And all with his left arm looking limp and ineffective for 58 minutes.

"We talk about Reyno's try-saving tackle but Greggy did a try-saver there and obviously contributed a lot even though he had that little elbow problem," Souths coach Michael Maguire said.

"They taped it up so he couldn't move his arm so he was sort of playing with one arm there at one stage."

The Queensland Origin star will have the injury assessed today but judging by the amount of strapping and re-strapping applied to it last night, he could be in doubt for round 16.

With Souths coasting 18-0 after 43 minutes, the Eels showed signs of mounting a mini-comeback to get to 18-6 before Sandow looked set to score his 85m intercept but enter the halfback who replaced him for a quarter of the price.

The new halfback also converted four goals, set up the opening try and underlined why South Sydney made the right decision to let Sandow depart.

Rabbitohs forward Michael Crocker scored a late try to put the result beyond doubt, once again exposing Sandow as the Rabbitohs weakest link in defence.

See how we covered the game at our match centre

South Sydney targeted their ex-teammate and it paid dividends repeatedly, with Inglis setting up Justin Hunt and Crocker barging over.

Eels coach Stephen Kearney admitted the performances of both Sandow and halves partner Ben Roberts would be closely reviewed.

"I thought he was quiet. We didn't get to see a great deal of Chris particularly in the first half because we didn't have a great deal of ball up over half way," Kearney said.

"I thought the progress he'd made over the last three performances was a real positive for him and the team but I thought he was fairly quiet tonight.

"I thought tonight wasn't a great performance by both (halves) so that's something I'll sit down and review early next week."

SOUTH SYDNEY 24 (M Crocker D Farrell J Hunt N Merritt tries A Reynolds 4 goals) bt PARRAMATTA 6 (R Maitua try L Burt goal) at ANZ Stadium. Referee: Alan Shortall, Brett Suttor. Crowd: 14,212.

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