History beckons Bunnies as Storm face sudden-death
BY:STUART HONEYSETT From: The Australian September 14, 2013 12:00AM
Rabbitohs fullback Greg Inglis celebrates South Sydney's 20-10 victory over the Melbourne Storm at ANZ Stadium. Source: Getty Images
SOUTH Sydney buried one hoodoo last night. It is now only two games away from burying an even larger one that stretches back 42 years.
The Rabbitohs drew first blood in the finals series against Melbourne at ANZ Stadium to earn themselves a week off. The Storm will live to fight another day and host the winner of Sunday's elimination final between Canterbury and Newcastle.
"We've got a good opportunity to get our preparation right and that's going to be our biggest focus over these next two weeks," Souths coach Michael Maguire said. "We're going to go into our next 80 minutes and we want to make sure we play the way we did tonight, if not better."
Make no mistake, this was a big result for Souths. The foundation club has a woeful record against the Storm - it hadn't beaten Melbourne since 2010 and until last night had only won three games from 22 attempts - and wasn't favoured to turn things around last night.
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Now the Rabbitohs will be playing in a preliminary final and are only one win away from playing their first grand final since 1971. Long-suffering Souths fans will be hoping history repeats itself as that was also the last time the club won a premiership.
The Rabbitohs led 14-0 at halftime on the back of some tenacious defence to deny one of the most potent attacking units.
"Our defence was much improved," Maguire said.
"I thought the boys, particularly in that first half, defended the way we're capable of.
"I was really pleased for how they worked hard for each other. That's probably the biggest thing.
"They were just hungry and showed the way they were capable of playing and they did that through their defence."
The match changed complexion in the second half when video referees Bernard Sutton and Luke Phillips denied a try to Billy Slater at 14-6.
A cross-field kick came off Souths winger Nathan Merritt before being pounced on in-goal by the Storm fullback.
Referee Jared Maxwell ruled a try to set up the prospect of a thrilling finish but Sutton and Phillips overturned the decision after ruling centre Will Chambers had interfered with Merritt without contesting the ball.
The no-try ruling stung more when Rabbitohs fullback Greg Inglis bamboozled the defence with some dazzling footwork before linking with Issac Luke to extend the lead to 20-6. The faithful could finally start celebrating.
The only concern for the Rabbitohs is they had two players placed on report. Prop Roy Asotasi was the first to be booked for a crusher tackle on Storm prop Jason Ryles in the first half.
The second involved Dylan Farrell and resulted in Storm winger Sisa Waqa leaving the field in a medicab. Waqa had climbed high to claim a bomb from Cooper Cronk in the hope of scoring a try but made contact with Farrell and landed awkwardly on his head. There were plenty of players who stood tall for South Sydney but Sam Burgess was right up there with the best of them. After being criticised recently for silly behaviour on the field he got back to simply playing football.
Some tough defence from Burgess set up the opening try of the night. The English enforcer crunched Justin O'Neill in a tackle hard enough to jolt the ball loose. It wasn't too long afterwards that Farrell was sliding over the line for a 6-0 lead.
Halfback Adam Reynolds extended the lead to 8-0 when he landed a penalty goal before Burgess got involved again. This time a barnstorming run from the Englishman built the momentum for Jeff Lima to score and extend the lead to 14-0.
Melbourne started the match in strong fashion but ultimately couldn't convert any of its chances. It gambled by rushing Gareth Widdop back into his first game in the top grade since dislocating his hip in June but it failed to pay off.
Melbourne coach Craig Bellamy said the start had been costly for the premier.
"A few things went wrong but certainly our start wasn't great with the ball," Bellamy said.
"We defended great in the first half. We had to. We turned over a lot of possession early and then we had about six more penalties against us and that tired us out.
"I was really happy with the way they defended and we fought back reasonably strong in the second half but couldn't quite bridge the gap."
Bellamy said it was a tough call to disallow the try to Slater, claiming Souths centre Bryson Goodwin had knocked Chambers into Merritt to deny him a fair shot at the ball.
"At the end of the day I don't think Will intentionally went in there to take him out so I think that was a real tough call," Bellamy said.
Widdop will be better for the run but his timing was clearly off last night. He held on to a pass and got tackled short of the line late in the first half when he had two men on his outside who would have easily scored.
South Sydney 20 (D Farrell J Lima I Luke tries; A Reynolds 4 goals) Melbourne 10 (W Chambers B Slater tries; C Smith goal) at ANZ Stadium. Referee: Shayne Hayne, Jared Maxwell. Crowd: 21,609
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/spo...ace-sudden-death/story-fnca0von-1226718928435
