The one question St George Illawarra fans will be asking themselves after Sunday’s Charity Shield loss to South Sydney will be: what has changed?
Unfortunately, they won’t like the answer.
St George Illawarra had a disappointing end to their pre-season with a comprehensive 32-14 defeat to South Sydney in the Charity Shield at ANZ Stadium.
The Rabbitohs won the annual silverware for a fifth consecutive season with a comfortable victory as they outclassed the Dragons who looked unorganised in attack and made a host of poor errors.
Dragons coach Paul McGregor included his Four Nations stars Josh Dugan, Tyson Frizell, Euan Aitken, Jason Nightingale and captain Gareth Widdop for the first time in pre-season but left exciting young star Jai Field on the bench.
St George Illawarra fans also had their first glimpse of new signings Paul Vaughan, Nene Macdonald and Cameron McInnes in the Red V.
Both sides spent the opening 10 minutes feeling each other out until Souths opened the scoring through one of their new signings, Robbie Farah.
The NSW hooker barged over from close range, with an Adam Reynolds conversion giving Souths a 6-0 lead.
Six minutes later and the Rabbitohs led 10-0 from a Macdonald mistake.
The giant winger dropped a high Reynolds kick, giving Souths a scrum deep in the Dragons’ half. From the scrum win, a simple shift right saw Alex Johnston stroll between Tim Lafai and Gareth Widdop to score.
Souths could have had their third try inside the first 20 minutes, only for a Braidon Burns effort to be chalked off for obstruction.
The Dragons dragged themselves back into the match against the run of play when Russell Packer stormed over after an excellent Jack de Belin run.
It was the first of a flurry of three tries within six minutes as Siosifa Talakai scored for Souths on the back of a Widdop error before Macdonald crossed on the back of a Thomas Burgess mistake and brilliant Dugan offload.
The Dragons then suffered a blow eight minutes before the break with Will Matthews stretchered off with a dislocated hip. The back-rower was injured in what initially looked to be a fairly innocuous tackle, but replays showed Matthews was caught awkwardly in a gang tackle.
St George Illawarra had a couple of chances before the break, but a poor Widdop kick and a Dugan pass that went out over the sideline saw Souths take a 16-10 lead into half-time.
The Dragons made changes at the break, with Field replacing McCrone at halfback and Taane Milne and Kurt Mann taking over from Tim Lafai and Aitken in the centres.
St George Illawarra dominated the opening 10 minutes of the second half, enjoying their best spell of the match. But they failed to take advantage of the mountain of possession they enjoyed. The Dragons’ best chance came from a strong Vaughan run, only for the prop to lose the ball over the line.
Souths were to make them pay with a try completely against the run of play. A sharp run from Damien Cook showed up some poor Dragons’ ruck defence before the replacement hooker placed a pin-point banana kick into the corner for Braidon Burns to score.
The Rabbitohs extended their lead after Cody Walker scooped up a Field kick and almost ran the length of the field only to be run down by McInnes. Souths eventually shifted right for Angus Crichton to score.
Burns had his second try soon after from an early Reynolds kick before Nightingale scored a late consolation for the Dragons.
Dugan said there were some positives to take out of the match.
“It was good to blow a few cobwebs out,” he said.
“There were seven of us that didn’t play in the Tigers trial game together. [We’re] still ironing out a few chinks in the combinations but [there was] a few positives and a few negatives we can learn from and move on.
“I think the first half we started pretty slow but we came back into it the back end of the first half. I guess we just lost our middle a bit in the second half and they kept getting a roll on. There’s a few things we can take out of it and learn from next week.”
The Dragons will need to re-group for their season opener, with St George Illawarra hosting Penrith at UOW Jubilee Oval, Kogarah in round one on March 4.
