Alex’s high five amid Rabbit romp
ALEX Johnston ran riot while Adam Reynolds put on a kicking masterclass as South Sydney trounced Penrith 42-14 at ANZ Stadium yesterday.
Rabbitohs winger Johnston ran in five tries however it was Reynolds who orchestrated the rout, kicking for four of his side’s seven tries in front of 14,103 people.
Johnston’s five-try haul equalled the club record jointly held by Nathan Merritt, Eric Sladden, Ian Moir, Johnny Graves, Don Manson, Alan Quinlivan and Harold Horder and took him to the top of the try-scorer leaderboard for the season with 15.
The cardinal and myrtle faithful would have been questioning where that sort of performance had been all year as they displayed a willingness to chance their arm.
The result means the Panthers are two wins behind eighth spot and takes the momentum out of their midseason charge up the ladder.
After Penrith skipped out to an 8-0 lead, the game turned when Souths captain Sam Burgess and Panthers winger Dallin Watene-Zelezniak were sin-binned for slapping in an all-in push-and shove.
When Matt Moylan threw a looping cut-out pass, WateneZelezniak wasn’t there to clean it up and Johnston ran 90 metres to score the first of his first-half hat- trick.
Johnston was denied a club record by the video referees when Cody Walker was ruled to have knocked on in the lead-up to what looked like his sixth try.