A hat-trick to South Sydney winger Alex Johnston crushed injury-depleted Newcastle on Saturday with the Novocastrians adding Bradman Best to their long list of NRL casualties.
Johnston's third try of the 24-10 win at Stadium Australia was the seventh hat-trick of his NRL career and his second in as many games after scoring three tries against Parramatta in round 12.
Ironically, the speedster scored his first hat-trick against the Knights back in 2014 and dished out the pain again on Saturday night.
It was salt in the wound for the Knights with strike centre Best taken off in the second half with a syndesmosis injury.
The 19-year-old has battled a number of injuries in his short NRL career and it comes just a fortnight after the Knights lost second-rower Tyson Frizell to a similar injury.
Even without Best, Saturday's effort was an improvement on last week's 40-4 flogging by the Eels.
Newcastle's cavalry is set to return in the coming weeks with David Klemmer to come back from suspension against the Warriors next week and Kalyn Ponga and Mitchell Pearce also a chance to play.
Three days after NSW's big win in the Origin opener in Townsville, representative stars Latrell Mitchell, Jaydn Su'a Daniel Saifiti all backed up for their respective sides on Saturday night, while Souths duo Damien Cook and Cameron Murray were rested.
After a brilliant performance for the Blues in their 50-6 win over Queensland, Mitchell had a mixed night for Souths.
The fullback was peppered under the high ball and bungled two catches but played out the whole game despite looking exhausted towards the end of the night.
Sua, who played 35 minutes for the Maroons on Wednesday night, backed up brilliantly.
The second-rower toed ahead a kick from Adam Reynolds to score in the second half to get the Rabbitohs out to a 14-point lead with 20 minutes to play.
The Knights had forced an arm wrestle until that point with tries to young winger Dom Young and Kurt Mann getting Newcastle within two points at the break.
However, Souths kicked on in a scrappy second half with Johnston's third try of the night down the left edge extending the lead to 18-10.
Souths next play Brisbane at Suncorp Stadium, while the Knights return to Newcastle for their next two games against the Warriors and North Queensland.
