A crowd of 25,127 has seen South Sydney retain the Charity Shield in what was a really good hit out for both sides.
Using extended benches and basically unlimited interchange, both sides managed to get a good look at a number of their possible playing combinations heading into the regular season.
Souths looked VERY good around dummy half with Issac Luke winning man of the match honours and Craig Wing stepping in giving the Bunnies a really deadly look around the ruck.
Wing played pretty well in his first game back in the Red and Green, but I still get the feeling he isn’t 100% comfortable playing at halfback and his instincts tell him to get into dummy half and control the game from there.
Souths forwards were impressive, especially Roy Asotasi who looks set for a big year. As a pack Souths showed they will cover the loss of Peter Cusack to easily.
As for St George/Illawarra, it was a really typical performance. They looks great at times, and dreadful at others. The two standouts however were Mark Gasnier, who looks like he is stepping up to a new level, and Jamie Soward, who is just electrifying.
You have to wonder if Sowart will come into State Of origin calculations should he continue to show similar form. He has a great running game, he likes to try and break the game open and he really has added so much spark to the Dragons side.
The Dragons showed they have a heap of depth out wide and a lot of their younger forwards looked really good.
All in all, it was a solid hit out for both clubs, and it was all for Charity!
