New faces Damien Cook, Paul Carter and Cody Walker have given South Sydney coach Michael Maguire food for thought after their 18-14 victory over St George Illawarra in the Charity Shield.
In an underwhelming game marred by handling errors and typical of the NRL pre-season, the trio were amongst the best onfield in front of 13,421 at ANZ Stadium on Saturday.
Walker looked dangerous in attack and proved he was ready to put pressure on starting halves Adam Reynolds and Luke Keary – the latter an 11th hour withdrawal from the clash.
Cook signalled his intention to claim the starting hooking spot while back-rower Carter was at his dogged best.
For the Dragons, Kurt Mann made a strong impression after being given the chance to make his case to take over the fullback role and was in position to score when Jason Nightingale produced an aerobatic knock-back from over the deadball line in the first half.
While Mann also came up with a couple of handling errors he otherwise had a solid outing, making a try-saving tackle on Cook in the first half, and keeping himself busy in attack.
Cook went within inches of scoring after darting out of dummy half with one of his first touches and was generally menacing with the ball in hand.
Carter made a strong case for a berth in the back-row, coming up with a number of punishing shots in attack and defence.
The Dragons took the lead for the first time after the break when Siliva Havili darted over from dummy half to make it 10-6 but the Rabbitohs soon snatched back the ascendancy when Kirisome Auva’a went over in the corner.
They went further in front when Ed Murphy scored on the back of a Walker break to give the Rabbitohs an eight-point lead.
Halfback Walker was solid, running the side and suggesting he was ready to step up to first grade.
The Dragons got back within four points when Euan Aitken got his second late in the match but could not come up with an equaliser despite pressing the Souths line at the death.
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3 Hats
Guest
Souths have plenty of young talent on the way through and plenty of depth! Considering 9 Regular First Graders were out: Paul Carter, Hymel Hunt, John Olive, Cody Walker, Jack Gosiewski, Zane Musgrove, Nathan Brown, Ed Murphy, Brock Gray and Angus Crichton will ALL be pushing for inclusion in the 17 each and every week. Of the Norths players mentioned expect Jack Siejka and Eli Levido to perhaps be included if needed!
3 Hats
Guest
AJM, Redfern Park only holds 5,000 maximum these days. You must be living under a ROCK mate. NO ONE would even bother traveling to Wollongong. Normally we get 25,000 but with the ALL STARS on the same day so ALL of Souths indigenous fans were NOT at the Game, plus 10 SOUTHS and 4 Dragons players were out so many decided NOT to come? There were far more Souths fans at the game, 10,000 to the Dragons 3,000 fans, that sounds about right. Where were all the Dragons fans? They didn't bother coming even though they were HOT favourites. 10 players OUT: Inglis, Johnston, Keary, Reynolds, X3 Burgesses, SAM, GEORGE, TOM, Grevsmuhl, Tyrrell and Crichton. The Rabbitohs certainly did control the game well, and were far the better team on the night! The FINAL South Sydney Rabbitohs NRL team SELECTED for the 2016 Charity Shield was: 1) Michael Oldfield 2) Aaron Gray 3) Bryson Goodwin 4) Hymel Hunt 5) John Olive 12) John Sutton (c) 6) Cody Walker 8) Jason Clark 9) Cameron McInnes 10) Zane Musgrove 15) Nathan Brown 23) Jack Gosiewski 13) Paul Carter Interchange: 14) Damien Cook 15) Nathan Brown 16) Kirisome Auva’a 17) Dane Nielsen 18) Tom Hughes 19) Ed Murphy 20) Cheyne Whitelaw 21) Brock Gray 22) Riley Travers Norths players, 3rd Tier: 7) Eli Levido 24) Jack Siejka 25) Brad Dietz 26) Sitiveri Moceidreke 27) Bernard Gregorius 28) Patrice Siolo 29) Jokatama Dokonivalu 30) Clayton Williams Head Coach – Michael Maguire
macca
Guest
used to be played at the sfs an always got about 28,000 fans in each year.
AJM
Guest
Why the hell is this played at ANZ? I bet the 13,000 created an awesome atmosphere amongst the 70,000 empty seats. Blind Freddy could see a game like this should be played at WIN or Redfern. -- Comment from The Roar's iPhone app.