South Sydney have flexed their premiership muscle just a week out from the NRL finals with a 51-10 demolition of the Wests Tigers.
A worrying hamstring injury to Sam Burgess in the second half put a dampener on the win in front of 12,037 at ANZ Stadium on Thursday night.
After losing their previous three games, the Rabbitohs bounced back emphatically with owner Russell Crowe watching from the stands.
Halves Cody Walker and Adam Reynolds were superb while the likes of Alex Johnston and Damien Cook ran riot on the back of their go-forward.
The stats told the whole story - the Rabbitohs had 10 players run for 100-plus metres and the Tigers none.
The Rabbitohs made 1797 metres compared to the Tigers' 711m.
With his side wrapping up a top four spot, and a likely blockbuster against the Sydney Roosters in the first week of the finals, coach Anthony Seibold gave Cook and skipper Greg Inglis a break in the last 10 minutes.
After the home side led 22-10 at halftime, Campbell Graham's 50th-minute try broke the Tigers' backs.
And they proceeded to run in five unanswered tries in the final 30 minutes - including four in the space of nine minutes.
The Rabbitohs' night took a turn for the worse when Burgess limped from the field in the 53rd minute and up the tunnel after an awkward tackle on Benji Marshall.
He did not return to the sideline for the rest of the game and it comes just two weeks after he underwent minor elbow surgery.
He will now undergo scans on Thursday, however the club was talking down his injury.
The Tigers kicked out to a 10-8 lead after Benji Marshall - who a day earlier put pen to paper to extend his career into 2019 - set up Chris Lawrence and David Nofoaluma.
However, as the possession rate swung around, the Rabbitohs turned the screws.
When George Burgess got a quick play-the-ball, Cook jumped out of dummy-half to put Angus Crichton over.
And then with eight seconds to go before halftime, Cody Walker stretched out to make it 22-10 at the break.
"A lot of people have asked that question (about the Rabbitohs' form) but we've always been really confident where we're heading," Seibold said.
"We were missing four or five players for a couple weeks and we lacked a little bit of cohesion and connection there.
"It was certainly a good performance. We started the game with plenty of intent but by the end of the game you could see who was marching on."
For the Tigers, it represented a limp finish to the year after after being in finals contention up until two weeks ago.
"The second half we had 200 more tackles or something and to their credit they were ruthless tonight," said Tigers coach Ivan Cleary, who again avoided questions about his future.
"I thought they played really well, they looked like a team on a mission."
Share
