South Sydney staged a comeback in the last ten minutes of play to snatch an epic 20-18 victory over the Penrith Panthers at Accor Stadium to open the NRL's ANZAC Round.
It was a frantic opening to the round opener at Homebush and both sides exchanged sets of six at will. Penrith had a great chance inside the first few minutes, however, as was evident in the first half. Their attacking execution left a lot to be desired with those chances going astray due to poor execution on the final tackle. Jarome Luai and Nathan Cleary struggled to get the kicking game right in the first half.
Off a Zac Hosking error, Souths turned defence into attack and created havoc with the Penrith defence causing all sorts of problems. Off the back of a couple of cheap set restarts, Damien Cook took advantage of the Penrith ruck and broke out of the tackle of Matt Eisenhuth and Moses Leota to collect the first try of the evening. Latrell Mitchell added the conversion to give the Rabbitohs a 6-0 lead.
Souths had a number of great attacking opportunities to build upon their 6-0 lead, but the Penrith defence was able to hold firm with Sunia Turuva defending magnificently on the left edge for the Panthers. Penrith's defensive resilience proved decisive in the dying moments in the first half.
They were out of sync for all of the first half, but the Panthers hit back in the dying moments. A great run from Spencer Leniu set the Panthers up for success before Cleary and Dylan Edwards linked up with Stephen Crichton to get the Panthers back in the contest and with his conversion from the sideline. Penrith levelled the scores at 6-6 at the break.
One of the game's most bizarre turns took when Mitchell went short off a goal-line dropout which failed to break the 10 metre plane. From there, Crichton added the cheap penalty goal as Penrith took their first lead of the contest.
This lead didn't last too long for the visitors. Following a short ball from Cody Walker, Mitchell crashed over from short range to cross for the Rabbitohs to re-take the lead for the home-side. But, that lead only lasted fifteen minutes or so they thought. Cleary grubbered which lead Chee Kam and Milne engage in an intermission game of tunnel-ball and Tago pounces to score... however the Bunker spoiled the party spotting a knock on.
Only a minute later, Penrith retook the lead as a brilliant play from Yeo, Cleary and Edwards who had a 3 on 2 and Crichton collected a double to take momentum into the championship minutes. Five minutes later, a kick delivered results for the Panthers. A clever cross-field kick from Cleary found vacant space but Crichton was jolly on the spot and he grabbed his third.
However, in the last five minutes. Souths delivered a blitzkrieg to snatch victory away from the Panthers. After a poor kick from Ilias, it turned into a pitched battle for the football which Latrell Mitchell wins and collected his second and it was a two-point game with seconds on the clock.
From there, Ilias and Walker combined with Mitchell who found Alex Johnston down the left. Johnston got a spectacular offload away to Walker who found Isaiah Tass and the young centre raced away to win the match for the South Sydney side.