![](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/r1589538_608x342_16-9.png\")
<\/p>\nWests Tigers are set to face a nervous wait on both their halves after Jarome Luai and Adam Doueihi were injured in their 20-16 loss to South Sydney.<\/p>\n
In a horror final 15 minutes for the Tigers in Gosford on Saturday night, Luai first limped off with a knee injury as Souths took a late four-point lead.<\/p>\n
Then while chasing the game with two minutes to play, Doueihi was left stranded on the far sideline after clutching at his right hamstring.<\/p>\n
STAY IN THE KNOW WITH ESPN<\/p>\n
Stay across all the big sports news — sign up to our weekly newsletters here!<\/p>\n
SUBSCRIBE<\/p>\n
Both are expected to require scans, following a match where the Tigers led 14-12 at halftime but didn’t cross the line for another try in the second half.<\/p>\n
Instead, it was Alex Johnston who celebrated his first full week as the NRL’s greatest ever try-scorer by providing the clutch plays for the Rabbitohs.<\/p>\n
After South Sydney crossed twice in the first seven minutes to lead 12-0, the Rabbitohs were forced to defend their own line for much of the first half.<\/p>\n
At one stage they repelled 26 consecutive Tigers play-the-balls in their own half, before finally cracking late.<\/p>\n
abbitohs players celebrate after scoring a try against the Wests Tigers.\u00a0Izhar Khan\/Getty Images<\/p>\n
And after the Tigers led at the break, it was Johnston who owned the big moments in the first half.<\/p>\n
The winger first gave Souths back the lead when he batted a Jamie Humphreys kick-back for Latrell Mitchell, allowing his centre to score and make it 16-14.<\/p>\n
And while the Rabbitohs gifted the Tigers a penalty goal straight off the kick-off to level the scores, Johnston had the match-winner when he chased through on a Cody Walker grubber.<\/p>\n
The winger also provided a key save late, cleaning up the scraps on a Doueihi grubber with two minutes to play, just before the Tigers halfback went down.<\/p>\n
Ultimately, the difference in this game was that Souths were able to take their chances, with Jye Gray and Jack Wighton both capitalising on the right edge early.<\/p>\n
In comparison, the Tigers dominated the territorial battle but were unable to play with the same strike-power they did in last week’s 44-16 win over North Queensland last week.<\/p>\n
Their two tries came in the space of four minutes before halftime, going from 0-12 down to 14-12 up via an eight-point try on the break when Heamasi Makasini was hit high by Mitchell while scoring.<\/p>\n
The Tigers’ teenager endured a roller-coaster night, making an error before Wighton’s early try and with both of the Bunnies first two four-pointers down his side.<\/p>\n
But the bigger pain for Benji Marshall’s men will be the injuries to Luai and Doueihi, with both hurt chasing through on their own kicks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Wests Tigers are set to face a nervous wait on both their halves after Jarome Luai and Adam…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":555163,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,761,762,158,85],"class_list":["post-555162","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nrl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-national-rugby-league","tag-nationalrugbyleague","tag-nrl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/555162","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=555162"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/555162\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/555163"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=555162"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=555162"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=555162"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}