South Sydney has marched on to another preliminary final with a comprehensive 38-12 victory over the Cronulla Sharks at Allianz Stadium.
With a comfortable lead heading into the break, captain Cameron Murray helped extend the lead to an unassailable lead.
South Sydney held a 12-0 lead with 39 minutes gone in the game, before a show and go from the skipper helped them advance the lead to three converted tries and lead a big performance from all 17 players.
The game couldn’t have started any better, with a Mark Nicholls bargeover with Souths’ first set with the ball getting the scoring underway in just the second minute of play.
The front rower was able to spin through one tackle before crashing his way over next to the posts.
From that point on it was a battle through the middle with both teams getting their chance with the ball, but neither able to post points.
That changed in the 29th minute as a slick backline movement caught the Sharks off guard, with Latrell Mitchell throwing a cutout pass to Taane Milne to extend the lead to 12-0.
That’s when a barnstorming Murray put the exclamation mark on a dominant first half, breaking through two defenders to crash his way over and push the scoreline out to 18-0 at half-time.
Cronulla was able to hit back on the scoreline and get a try of their own straight after the break, but a determined South Sydney found the answer straight away.
Campbell Graham kept the ball alive near the sideline to Mitchell, who found Milne close to the sideline, before passing inside to halfback Lachlan Ilias to again give the Rabbitohs an 18-point advantage.
A fortuitous try to Cronulla again cut the lead back to two converted tries, before Cody Walker took it upon himself to put the game beyond any doubt in the 62nd minute, taking on the line and breaking through to take the Rabbitohs out to a 30-12 lead.
When Milne capitalised upon an errant pass, stepping inside and getting the better of his marker to bag a double, South Sydney had one eye on their fifth straight preliminary final against Penrith in a rematch of last year’s grand final.
A late penalty was taken upon by Mitchell to give him seven goals for the night and 13-straight goals in the finals, putting the icing on the cake late in the contest.
It capped off a dominant performance from the Rabbitohs, who ran for almost 400 more metres and forced 18 more missed tackles throughout the 80 minutes.
Despite finishing the regular season in seventh, the Rabbitohs were able to keep their season alive against the odds, and now face the prospect of Penrith to advance to a second-straight grand final on Saturday night.
The two teams will clash at Accor Stadium, where the Panthers were able to edge the Rabbitohs out earlier in the season in the dying minutes when they met back in round 23.
