Stoic Souths scare sloppy Sharks

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South Sydney Rabbitohs v Cronulla-Sutherland Sharks

Coming into this match, the Sharks had found their attacking mojo, spearheaded by the brilliant running game of hooker Blayke Brailey. And in this match against a heavily depleted, injury-riddled South Sydney side, the Sharks were expected to run riot.

But the Bunnies defence turned up, with great line speed and defensive pressure, they defended their line stoically for the full 80 minutes, in the end going down by just 2 points in one of those weird contests where the losing side walks away feeling vastly more proud of the performance than the victor does.

The Sharks opened the scoring when Nicho Hynes landed a penalty goal after nine minutes. Ten minutes later, Souths responded in kind courtesy of the boot of Isaiah Tass. Both teams were playing excessively safe football when on the attack, especially the Sharks who had a glut of possession inside the Rabbitohs half, but couldn't convert it to points, due to one dimensional plays like putting up a bomb that would be heavily contested by both sides, or running on the last.

With a minute remaining in the half, Souths ended a set with Jack Wighton looking to kick down into the Sharks corner. The kick though struck Teig Wilton on the side of the head. The referee ruled that it was charge down which he played at, Souths regathered and had a fresh set of tackles to boot. On the next tackle they sent the ball right to Tyrone Munro who dived over to score in the corner. Tass' sideline conversion hit the upright and was waved away.

At halftime Souths were surprisingly in front 6-2.

The Sharks struck back just four minutes after the resumption of play when they were camped on the Souths line. They moved the ball to the left where the Souths defence rushed up. William Kennedy received a pass with a defender right on top of him, so he perfectly tapped the ball along to the unmarked Ronaldo Mulitalo, and the winger dived over to score in the corner. Hynes nailed the sideline conversion to put the Sharks up by 2.

3 minutes later, with the Sharks attack looking somewhat reinvigorated, Jack Wighton and Toby Rudolf have a clumsy clash with both men suffering from a head knock. Wighton got up and was fine, but Rudolf fared far worse and was helped from the field and didn't return. Wighton was then sent to the sin bin for ten minutes for the high contact.

The Sharks almost scored in the 55th minute when Chris Vea'ila put Mulitalo in for a try but his pass was ruled forward.

Souths survived the ten minutes with just 12 men on the field, courtesy of some insipid and meek attack by the Sharks. In the 61st minute, yet another Braydon Trindall bomb was not taken by the Rabbitohs, this time Kennedy cleaned up but was immediately held close to the Rabbitohs line, however he managed to offload to Blayke Brailey who barged his way over for a try, very nearly being held up and very nearly losing the ball as he grounded it. Hynes converted to give the Sharks an 8 point lead.

Munro very nearly scored off a kick for Souths, with eight minutes remaining in the match, but he didn't get a favourable bounce.

Two minutes later, Kennedy got sent on a run down the left sideline and after he raced 60 metres, he passed inside to Trindall, but the Sharks five-eighth failed to hang on to the ball.

With just over a minute left in the game, Tevita Tatola stormed onto a crash ball, hit a gap in the Sharks goal-line defence and he barely got the ball to the line for a try, however he suffered an injury to his shoulder in the process and had to be helped from the field. Tass converted.

Despite a last throw of the dice, Souths couldn't further their score and the Sharks hung on to win 14-12.