Latrell Mitchell celebrated his 150th game in style scoring his first hat-trick for the Rabbitohs as the Bunnies started the Easter long weekend with a 50-16 win against the Bulldogs.
The win meant the Rabbitohs kept their stellar Good Friday form intact, with the Bulldogs unable to beat them on the public holiday since 2017.
However, the match started well for the Dogs who scored the first try with a lovely play from the scrum, sending the ball out wide to the right where Jake Averillo ran almost the length of the field, bringing the ball down under the posts to open the scoring.
However, things turned sour for the Dogs soon after, when Josh Addo-Carr left the field in just the 10th minute, clutching at his leg after getting caught awkwardly on the turf.
While fans held grave fears initially of a possible ACL injury, it was later reported he had suffered a syndesmosis injury.
His departure opened up the attacking options for the Rabbitohs who then made a concerted attack on the Bulldogs’ left edge where Addo-Carr would normally defend and ran in four first half tries, including two back-to-back to Mitchell.
The Dogs struggled to regain their early composure and went into the break trailing 26-6.
In the second half, the Dogs composed themselves early to stem the bleeding and were even the first to score after the break.
They thought they had a try when Matt Burton ran through a gap to set up his outside men, but the Bunker found that Josh Reynolds had stopped in the line and prevented Davy Moale from making a tackle.
There was no question about their next attempt however and were on the scoreboard after Reed Mahoney put a kick through the line for a chasing Burton who found Mitchell out of position to score the try.
However, they were their own worst enemies again, giving up the ball to release pressure with another error.
The Rabbitohs made them pay, scoring five second half tries to bring up their half century, with both Mitchell and Campbell Graham posting hat-tricks.
Story first published by: NRL.com