Drinkwater, Holmes star as Cowboys hammer Rabbitohs

A double in the space of two minutes from Valentine Holmes helped the Cowboys to an impressive 31-6 road victory over the Rabbitohs on Sunday afternoon. 

With five players backing up from Origin II – including Holmes who was responsible for 18 points on his own – the Cowboys dominated the majority of the encounter at Accor Stadium and took full advantage of an error-prone Rabbitohs side, who fell to a second-straight defeat. 

Scott Drinkwater starred at fullback – setting up three tries and burning South Sydney with his running game with 216 metres gained – while Maroons representatives Murray Taulagi, Holmes, Jeremiah Nanai and Reuben Cotter all carried the ball for over 100 metres in the win.

Blues hooker Reece Robson also backed up admirably with 36 tackles for his club. 

Despite having nearly 60 percent of the ball in the first half, the Cowboys had only a modest 5-0 lead to show for it at the break, thanks to a Taulagi try and a Drinkwater field goal.

But the points came much easier in the second half, with the visitors running in four tries, all of which were converted by Holmes. 

Two of those came in the opening eight minutes of the second half, with Holmes finishing a Drinkwater line break before grabbing a Taulagi bat-back two minutes later to stretch the lead to 17.

As they continued to battle against a high error rate and subsequent lopsided possession count, the Rabbitohs finally had a breakthrough on the hour when Lachlan Ilias sold Robson a big dummy off a scrum from close range and went in under the posts. 

But on the very next set Cameron Murray illegally stripped the ball from Coen Hess, gifting Holmes with an easy penalty goal which gave the visitors a three-score lead once again. 

Nineteen-year-old forward Kulikefu Finefeuiaki put the result beyond doubt after bursting through a gap off a Drinkwater short ball to score under the posts, before Tom Dearden put the icing on the cake with a fifth four-pointer three minutes from full-time.