Match Details
Match Date	14th Jul, 2018
Opponent	South Sydney
Result	Loss 6-24
Coach	Dean Pay
Captain	Josh Jackson
Venue	Homebush (ANZ Stadium)
Crowd	14,278
Referee	Peter Gough Gavin Badger

Robert Jennings bagged a hattrick of tries and Damien Cook produced a Herculean post-Origin performance to help South Sydney march to their ninth straight win.

The competition leaders started sluggishly yesterday against Canterbury before skipping away to an easy 24-6 win. The victory kept the good times going at the Redfern club, who celebrate the 300-game milestone of Rabbitohs favourite and local junior John Sutton at ANZ Stadium next Saturday.

Jennings took his season tally to 16 tries in 15 games with touchdowns in the 26th, 48th and 72nd minutes. The volume of points that have come down the left side of the field for Souths, where Jennings and Sutton roam, is freakish.

Coach Anthony Seibold said Jennings had been one of the club’s big improvers, especially after he arrived at pre-season training eight kilos overweight.

‘‘I kicked him up the backside to start with, and since then he’s applied himself,’’ Seibold said.

‘‘He’s been more consistent with the way he trains and prepares. He’ll never die of stress, Jenko, because he’s a relaxed guy. His carries out of the back field for us really creates momentum.’’

While Jennings kept the scoreboard ticking over, Cook was the man who got the players actually ticking. Fewer than 72 hours after another classy effort for NSW at Suncorp Stadium, Cook made a couple of darting runs in the first half that seemed to shake his teammates to life. One wonderful run downfield and a pass off the ground led to an Adam Reynolds longrange try.

Then Cook had the hide to put his body on the line and deny Rhyse Martin a certain try just before the break. By the time he slumped over the sideline just before full-time for a well-earned spell, Cook had run for 101 metres, had five tackle busts and 45 tackles. He was unhappy he had been denied playing out the full 80 minutes.

‘‘I was proud of our three boys [Dane Gagai and Angus Crichton] backing up, but in particular Cooky, who was outstanding,’’ Seibold said. ‘‘I was really pleased with the way he applied himself.’’

Cook, Crichton and Gagai were spared backing up after Origin I against the Gold Coast Titans and did not train all week leading into the North Queensland clash leading into game three.

As to whether the Origin players sit out any of the remaining games in the run home to the NRL finals, Seibold said: ‘‘Our performance staff, Paul Devlin and Jared Wade, have done an exceptional job managing their load. I wanted them to play this week. I thought it was really important they back up.’’

Sam Burgess said the Origin trio had not complained once about their heavy schedule.

Nine straight wins for Souths will be impossible to ignore. The seven previous times they have strung together nine wins in a season, they went on to win the title six times.

Canterbury could have done with Cook yesterday given he was once at the club, only to be released by former coach Des Hasler.

The Dogs tried hard and could have got back to within a try late in the game, only for Jeremy Marshall-King to be stripped of the ball, and for Aiden Tolman to knock on in the process.

David Klemmer, who also backed up after the Blues series win, ran for nearly 150 metres, Will Hopoate quickly adjusted back to life at fullback, while skipper Josh Jackson lost in his 150th career game but is certain to hit many more milestones before he retires.

Source: The Sun Herald

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