Souths soar to State Championship glory

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Brisbane Tigers v South Sydney Rabbitohs

The South Sydney Rabbitohs have extended New South Wales' dominance in the State Championship with a 42-22 victory over the Brisbane Tigers. 

Claiming the sixth consecutive title for New South Wales over Queensland in the annual State Championship fixture, the Rabbitohs led the Melbourne Storm feeder team from start to finish with teenage speedster Tyrone Munro claiming a hat-trick.

After a horror opening that saw Dion Teaupa drop the kick off, the Rabbitohs worked their way into the contest and were rewarded with Munro (10th minute) collecting a bomb from Dean Hawkins for first points.

Going further in front after a left-side shift finished off by Tom Carr (18th minute) put the Rabbitohs beyond a converted try, Brisbane interchange hooker Cole Geyer (21st minute) made an immediate impact by burrowing over from close range.

With both sides struggling to gain ascendancy for the remainder of the half, the Rabbitohs took advantage of Jonah Pezet putting a line drop out on the full and struck in the shadows of halftime with Munro (38th minute) using raw speed to collect his second.

Surviving a scare early in the second half after Leivaha Pulu was unable to ground the ball from a barge over effort, the Rabbitohs secured the result with tries to Ethan O'Neill (49th minute), Teaupa (52nd minute) and Munro (56th minute) taking the score out to 30-6.

The Tigers stemmed the one-way flow of points with Thomas Rafter (63rd minute) running a nice line, however a misdirected pass with the Tigers on the attack allowed Carr (71st minute) to race the length of the field for his second. 

A superb offload from Shaquai Mitchell to Tallis Duncan (74th minute) saw South Sydney bring up 40 pointes, before Solomona Faataape (78th minute) and Kane Bradley (80th minute) crossed for consolation tries as the Rabbitohs ran out 42-22 victors.