South Sydney Rabbitohs crush St Helens 39-0 in World Club Challenge

The South Sydney Rabbitohs cruised to a record 39-0 win over St Helens as the NRL champions were crowned World Club Challenge victors.

The Rabbitohs ran in seven tries at Langtree Park as the Australian sides competed a 3-0 whitewash in the World Club Series, and took home the big prize as well, after previous wins for the St George lllawara Dragons and Brisbane Broncos on Friday and Saturday.

South Sydney took less than two minutes to nose 6-0 in front when Adam Reynolds’ skidding kick was touched down – just – by Glenn Stewart and the early one-way traffic would continue for most of the 80 minutes.

Reynolds, who had an influential night with ball in hand and his boot, extended the lead to eight points with a penalty just after Saints had narrowly missed out on making the most of a rare Souths error to score in the corner.

Mark Percival looked as if he had put St Helens on the board in the 11th minute but his try, awarded by referee Richard Silverwood, was overturned by the video ref as he failed to get the ball down under pressure from Isaac Luke.

Reynolds was at the heart of South Sydney’s second try, making two tacklers miss before releasing Dylan Walker – the Australia centre had plenty to do but jinked his way over the line to make it 12-0, Reynolds missing the goal.

Worse would follow for Saints on 24 minutes when a knock-on in midfield put South Sydney back on the front foot and Greg Inglis dived over for a third try.

The Rabbitohs made it 24-0, much to the delight of watching owner Russell Crowe, when a cross-field kick took a horrible bounce and landed perfectly for Joel Reddy to dive over. Crowe opted to watch events at Langtree Park rather than go to the Oscars ceremony, and it appeared he had made the right choice.

Percival failed to ground again as Saints pressed for their first score just before half-time but any hopes of a second-half rally were extinguished eight minutes after the interval following a lengthy break when Walker and Jordan Turner were being treated after a nasty clash of heads.

Another intelligent Reynolds kick, this time a high hanger, was tapped back by Chris McQueen and Luke Keary dived on the loose ball to put the Rabbitohs 30 points up.

A penalty put Saints in sight of the try-line, but they were forced back by some superb South Sydney defence and Tommy Makinson was eventually pushed out of bounds as a rare scoring chance was passed up by the home side.

McQueen was next to put his name on the try-scoring list, Inglis forcing a turnover inside the Saints' 10 and sending the replacement over the line for their sixth score.

Reddy made it seven after a comedy of errors from both sides 14 minutes from time and Reynolds booted a drop goal with a couple of minutes remaining to make sure of the record World Club Challenge winning margin, previously 38 points held by the Melbourne Storm and Sydney Roosters.