Rabbitohs

'IT'S A DREAM!': Brooks the hero as Tigers pull off stunning repeat in Bunnies boilover.

Souths finished with 16 errors to three, more than the 14 they have averaged all season, and completed just 67%. “I have to give Jacko (Hastings) a wrap, he has taken a lot of pressure of me, the last two weeks I have come to the game feeling calm, and sort of enjoying my footy again.” “Seeing him talk after the game and talk about his feelings, he doesn’t really talk like that and I think these last couple of weeks, he would never say it was hard, but it would have been hard.” “I thought I don’t know how he is getting himself to training with a positive attitude, to get himself to the next week, everything seemed to be lumped on his shoulders and a change of number seems to be doing the trick.” “In short the answer is no, but if you have a look at Hastings career, he has done a hell of a job at Salford, played in big games and big moments and the way that he has introduced himself to Tigers fans has been great,” Cronk said. “It eases the pressure on me and it just allowed me to just come in when I want the ball and I think he has been enormous for me so I can’t thank him enough.” “We have seen players under pressure throughout the history of the game, but Luke Brooks, the pressure that has been applied to him over the opening five rounds, I felt for him,” Greg Alexander said. “He is marshalling his team, he is telling them where to go and what they need to do, and that’s been missing from the Tigers so he holds the keys to the Tigers victory, he needs a lot to happen around him, but he is the key man for Wests Tigers.” Michael Maguire, in a last-ditch attempt to revitalise his side, swapped Brooks and Hastings’ positions in the playmaking roles once the now halfback served a suspension for a dangerous tackle. “He just is taking control and led the team around, that came out naturally in him, he is a natural leader,” Brooks said. A lovely sleight of hand from fullback Daine Laurie to set up David Nofoaluma for the first try of the evening to make it five in his past five games at the venue and he finished with a double. In only his second game in the No.7, Hastings looked at home, directing his teammates and being the organiser the Tigers so desperately needed at the start of the season.