Leichhardt Oval
Wed Aug 1, 7:30pm
LOSS 9-13
A serious indescretion by Test winger Terry Fahey and a disallowed try from centre Gary Knight sent South Sydney to a 9-13 loss to Cronulla in the first Amco Cup semi-final at Leichhardt Oval last night. Fahey was penalised by referee Greg Hartley for incorrectly playing the ball. Then with only two minutes remaining in a thrilling match, Rogers kicked high at the South Sydney line and the ball bounced to Cronulla centre Chris Gardner, who unloaded to prop Paul Khan who had a simple task of placing the ballover the line. "I'd hate to have lost it like that" said Cronulla coach Norm Provan later, refering to Fahey's blunder shortly after Souths grabbed a 9-8 lead. Souths trailing 8-6 with five minutes, remaining scored the try from a Grant Jones "bomb". In a big scramble for the ball centre Gary Kinight touched down for the try which Jones was unable to convert. Those two tries in the final moments were the only tries of the match. The Rabbitohs had a "try" disallowed two minutes into the last quarter after Knight had touched down from a John Sellar kick. It was hotly disputed whether referee Greg Hartley was right in ruling a knock-on by Souths. From the sideline and also on television replays it appeared to be a fair try. Souths didn't deserve to lose last night, but then neither did Cronulla - a draw would have been a great result. South Sydney lock Rocky Laurie was voted man-of-the-match, but cedit must go to every player on the field for poviding a super match and a great advertisemet for rugby league. At half-time Cronulla was leading 6-2 in a tight match. But two penalty goals to Souths kicker Grant Jones in the third quarter saw the Rabbitohs level the scores at 6-all. Rogers took the Sharks further ahead with a penalty from a Souths scrum infringement just on three-quarter time.
40 min 2-6
4-6
6-6
60 min 6-8
74 min 9-8
78 min 9-13
Jones try
Jones 3 from 6 goals
Crowd 5,000
Referee G.Hartley
Penalities 12-10
Scrums 8-12
Final Line Up
T G/A FG
Flbk - 1 - Jones, Grant 1 3/6 -
Wing - 2 - Swift, Jim - - -
Cntr - 3 - Knight, Gary - - -
Cntr - 4 - Squadritto, Joe - - -
Wing - 5 - Fahey, Terry - - -
5/8 - 6 - Wright, Gary - - -
Half - 7 - McMillian, Bob - - - (c)
Lock - 8 - Laurie, Robert - - -
SRow - 9 - Peek, John - - -
SRow - 10 - Gibbs, Nathan - - -
Prop - 11 - Hambly, Gary - - -
Hook - 12 - Stewart, Ken - - -
Prop - 13 - Frith, CHarlie - - -
Res - 14 - Topper, Steve - - -
Res - 15 - Sellar, John - - -
Res - 16 - McGregor, Rod - - -
Res - 17 - Reed, Peter - - -
1 3/6 -
Other FG Matches
Judiciary News
No one was sent off.