The South Sydney Rabbitohs have made it 8 wins in a row, putting 50 points on the St George-Illawarra Dragons in a rescheduled match at Suncorp Stadium on Sunday evening.
Following a crazy 24 hours which included a return flight to Rockhampton, the Rabbitohs ran in 9 tries to 3 against the Dragons to take an equal share of second place on the Premiership ladder, tied with the Penrith Panthers on 34 points.
The Dragons gave the Rabbitohs an early scare when it appeared that the Dragons had crossed inside the opening minute, but the decision was reversed when the replay showed that Cory Norman had knocked the ball onwards in the lead-up, and from there the Rabbitohs built an early lead by terrorizing the Dragons right side defense.
Latrell Mitchell was the first man to cross for one that counted, with Cody Walker supplying an early pass for the fullback to beat three defenders on the way to the try line, and Cody crossed for one of his own shortly after putting the Rabbitohs up by 12 after 15 minutes.
The momentum swung to the Dragons for the second period of the first half though, who scored two tries following Ben Hunt kicks. The first was through Billy Burns who pounced on a grubber under the posts, and the Queensland halfback followed it up shortly after when he provided with his boot once again, this time for former Rabbitoh Tyrell Fuimaono to score and make the score 12 points to 10.
The points kept coming in bunches with the Rabbitohs hitting back with a second pair of tries, this time on the right edge for two men who had been placed on report earlier in the match. Taane Milne ran a nice line to straighten up a Cody Walker pass before skidding across the line to score before Jadyn Su'A crossed a few minutes later and fought hard to get the ball to the grass with Dragons defenders trying to hold him up to bring the half time score to 24 points to 10.
The Rabbitohs kept the pressure on to begin the second half but weren't able to convert their opportunities to points, with Josh Mansour unable to finish a play on the end of a Mitchell cut out pass on one end and Taane Milne spilling a tap on pass on the other side of the field.
Josh Mansour made amends shortly after though, finishing off a play that went 90 meters in 3 plays. Jaxon Paulo fielded a kick a few meters out from his own line and streaked upfield 50 meters to begin the movement, and two plays later the ball was spun wide to the left-winger crossing for the Rabbitohs 5th try.
Tyrell Sloan hit back for the Dragons after a nice offload from Billy Burns following a period where the Rabbitohs couldn't control the ball, but Adam Reynolds got one back over the young fullback - spotting Sloan in the defensive line the Rabbitohs captain put boot to ball for a classic chip and chase, grounding the ball just inside the dead-ball line and closing in on Eric Simms as the top point scorer in Rabbitohs history in the process.
Jai Arrow crossed just minutes later after a barnstorming run by Latrell Mitchell, who beat 7 Dragons tackles to create the space for Cody Walker to turn Arrow inside to cross untouched, and Keaon Koloamatangi bagged the Rabbitohs 8th try with some strong running of his own in the 75th minute.
Fittingly, it was Latrell Mitchell who closed out the scoring for the Rabbitohs with another strong run down the left side, and in the end, the Rabbitohs ran out with their 6th straight victory against the Dragons with a dominant score of 50 points to 14.
