It's time to see where the game was won for the Rabbitohs with their 26-10 victory against the Bulldogs for 'By the Numbers.'
Left vs Right
Particularly in the first half we saw a very even battle between the Rabbitohs left edge and Bulldogs right edge.
We saw some brilliant slide-of-hands by Latrell to AJ which had the speedy Winger cross for the first try of the game in his 150th Grade* game for the Rabbitohs, (and picked up his 400th Grade* point).
The Bulldogs tested the Rabbitohs' left edge through the likes of Brandon Wakeham who found Crichton in space with a brilliant cut-out pass and DWZ also poked his nose through after a dummy had the South Sydney edgeman in all-sorts.
Reimis Smith and Campbell Graham had a good little battle; both Souths Juniors who came up through the ranks together and with the addition of James Roberts tonight, Graham found himself in the more familiar left edge.
The Rabbitohs backs were outstanding with ball-in-hand tonight and outran the Bulldogs backs by over 70 metres.
Pick your times to run
Damien Cook’s timing as to when to run has continued to get better over the weeks, and it was the punch in attack where Cook got the better of Marshall-King as far as head-to-heads go. He’s also proven he has a motor on him without the ball after once again clocking close to the half century with tackles made.
Cook ran for more than double Marshall-King and generated a ‘six again’ off the back of a 15 metre run in the first half (The Rabbitohs only had one ‘six again’ to the Bulldogs’ three). Important to note that two of the tries (one from each side) came from the set directly after a ‘six again’ was issued. In the Bulldogs’ case, before Raymond Faitala-Mariner crossed the Rabbitohs conceded a fresh set on the last tackle.
Milestones
We saw Jaydn Su’A crash over for his first Rabbitohs try while Cody Walker brought up his 200th NRL point when he hit the line at speed.
Cody has always known his way to the try line but in recent weeks we’ve seen his support play really shine through with his last two tries coming directly from running the ‘courage line’, that we normally associate with second rowers or centres.
Shout out: Gagai ran for over 300 metres and picked up his 50th NRL try!
Grade* games for the Rabbitohs are a combination of NRL, reserve grade and under 20s games.
