Ivan Cleary’s young Panthers side has been outrun by a confident Souths outfit in our first Auckland Nines pool match at Eden Park this afternoon.
We opened the scoring in the first minute of play, after an Isaac John grubber kick was picked up by Christian Crichton, and he offloaded to Tupou Sopoaga who dived over the line. The conversion missed so we took a 4-0 lead.
But the advantage was short lived and a few minutes later the Rabbitohs put their first points on the board. They put a kick in towards the goal posts which was fumbled by Panthers on the pick-up, and they scooped it up and dived over to score in the bonus zone, giving them a 7-4 lead.
They were in again soon after, when Panthers missed a double up in attack, and Souths ran straight through a hole in our defence to extend their lead to 11-4.
Just before the half time break Penrith was awarded back to back penalties, but we couldn’t do anything with the extra time.
HALF TIME: 11-4 Souths
Both teams defended strongly in this half and neither could score any more points, so the Rabbitohs walked away with the win.
FULL TIME: 11-4 Souths
