St George Illawarra five-eighth Jamie Soward missed a sideline conversion after the siren as the NRL Charity Shield clash with South Sydney ended in a 26-26 draw at ANZ Stadium on Saturday night.
Soward had the chance to win the Shield for the first time in three years for the Dragons after winger Brett Morris had barged his way over for an 80th minute try, his second for the night.
But Soward’s kick from the left touchline narrowly missed to the right, ensuring the Rabbitohs retained the Shield as the match finished at five tries apiece in front of a record 27,221 for the pre-season fixture at Homebush.
Souths winger Fetuli Talanoa bagged a hat-trick, including two miracle put-downs from kicks by impressive halves John Sutton and Chris Sandow.
Talanoa opened the scoring in the 10th minute after good lead work from Colin Best before staying millimetres inside the touch-in-goal line to ground a Sandow grubber in the 30th.
He was then on hand to touch down a Sutton grubber in the 51st minute as the Rabbitohs extend their second-half lead to 22-16.
Sandow and Sutton were sharp for the Rabbitohs, the five-eighth laying on two Souths tries and Sandow also instigating what had looked to be the clincher with a grubber in the 67th minute for Nathan Merritt’s try.
Dragons fullback Darius Boyd had a hand in four of his side’s four-pointers, including two masterful cut-out balls for winger Jason Nightingale’s two first half tries.
Talanoa and Nightingale both had doubles by halftime but the Dragons led 16-12 at the break after a 37th-minute effort from Morris.
Souths regained the lead when Ben Lowe scored five minutes after halftime and extended it to 22-16 when Talanoa completed his hat-trick.
But, as in the first half, just when the momentum seemed to be with Souths, the Dragons hit back, Nick Emmett forcing his way over three minutes later.
Souths led for the majority of the match and coach John Lang was disappointed his “underdone” side couldn’t close it out.
“In the end I was disappointed we blew a match-winning lead but I thought it was a pretty good effort,” he said.
“A lot of our blokes came in underdone and they’re probably still going to be underdone for the first fixture.”
Captain Roy Asotasi made a successful return from a knee reconstruction and said he had received some encouragement from the great Andrew Johns.
“I got a text from Joey, he just said take the first hit-up and then everything will be off your mind, so good advice Joey,” he said.
“Once you get into the initial contact it pretty much fades away.”
Dragons coach Wayne Bennett said he would have been unconcerned if his side hadn’t managed the last minute try to snatch the draw.
“We weren’t worried too much about the result,” he said.
“It was a really good quality game of football for such an early part of the year, it kind of started off where the season finished last year.”
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