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How to watch 2021 Charity Shield: South Sydney Rabbitohs vs St. George Illawarra Dragons live and free

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Aaron McAllister
Posted: 27 February 2021 12:30 pm
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South Sydney are looking to claim their 9th straight Charity Shield. Will the Dragons finally breath fire?

SUMMARY: The Charity Shield is exclusive to FOX LEAGUE, which leaves your choices as Foxtel, Kayo Sports and Foxtel Now. Your best option to watch is via Kayo Sports, do it for free 14-day free trial. This gets you access to every NRL match live and 50 additional sports.

The 2021 NRL season is just about here, but before that the traditional Charity Shield clash of Rabbitohs vs Dragons headlines the final weekend of trial matches.

Ever since the Rabbitohs reclaimed the shield in 2013, they have won 7 and drawn 1 of the past 8 encounters to keep hold of the prize all these years. Given that the winner retains the shield during a draw South Sydney, pardon the pun marches on.

When is the Charity Shield?

This year's match kicks off at 6:30pm AEDT on Saturday 27 February once more at Glen Willow Oval, Mudgee, NSW.

How to watch the 2020 Charity Shield South Sydney vs St. George

There is no free-to-air television coverage of this match it's exclusive to FOX LEAGUE. Foxtel iQ, Foxtel Now and Kayo Sports are your viewing options. We have put together a full viewing guide for the NRL pre-season here.

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Stream Charity Shield Rabbitohs vs Dragons on Kayo Sports

When it comes to the NRL, Kayo Sports is tough to beat. It has every game of the NRL regular season live, plus the finals series. The grand final is exclusively live on Channel 9, but is available on Kayo on replay shortly after the final whistle.

Fox League channel is available to watch on replay, live or in highlights packages on Kayo. New customers can get access to a 14-day free trial to give it all a test run.

In total Kayo has more than 50 sports all in HD and offers a range of unmatched special features. It includes SplitView (four sports at once on the same screen), Interactive Stats, No Spoilers (hide scores mode), Key Moments (a timeline of important events in a game you can jump to), picture-in-picture mode, choose your own camera and plenty more.

You can check it all out in our Kayo Sports review. The service is compatible with Macs and PCs, plus iOS and Android smartphones and laptops. It can also be watched using Chromecast, Apple TV, Android TV, Telstra TV, Sony Bravia TV and Samsung TV (2017 or later).

Costs are either $25/month subscription to be able to watch on 2 screens at the same time or pay $35/month to enjoy 3 simultaneous streams.

Live stream Charity Shield on Kayo: Start your 14-day FREE trial now

Charity Shield history

The Charity Shield is a traditional curtain-raiser for the new rugby league season and was first held in 1982. It has been held in every season since between the Dragons and Rabbitohs, apart from 2000 and 2001 when South Sydney had been eliminated from the competition.

Despite South Sydneys recent dominance the overall record is now dead even. The Dragons have won 16 games, the Rabbitohs 16 and there have been 5 draws.

Charity Shield squads

There will be a number of representative players on display Saturday night. Just don't expect them to play the full 80 minutes, as the coaches will mainly be looking at players on the cusp of locking in a first grade spot and new recruits.

Speaking of the fresh faces the Bunnies will have veterans Benji Marshall and Josh Mansour off the bench in the cardinal and myrtle for the first time. Former Dragon Jacob Host will start in the back row and big name recruit Jai Arrow will also come off the interchange.

At the time of writing St. George are yet to name a starting team instead opting for a straight 24 man squad. Even predicting a starting 17 for the Dragons is about as messy as some of the headlines the club has gone through during the offseason.

Jack Bird will make his seocnd appearance for the Dragons after a limited hit out against Parramatta last week. Despite suggestions Bird would play in at lock or second row this season, he's now expected to line up at centre.

Rabbitohs: 1. Latrell Mitchell 2. Jaxson Paulo 3. Dane Gagai 4. Campbell Graham 5. Alex Johnston 6. Cody Walker 7. Adam Reynolds 8. Thomas Burgess 9. Damien Cook, 10. Junior Tatola 11. Keaon Koloamatangi 12. Jacob Host 13. Cameron Murray Interchange: 14. Blake Taaffe 15. Josh Mansour 16. Tautau Moga 17. Steven Marsters 18. Troy Dargan 19. Hame Sele 20. Benji Marshall 21. Mark Nicholls 22. Dean Hawkins 23. Patrick Mago 24. Jai Arrow 25. Joshua Cook

Dragons: Daniel Alvaro, Jack Bird, Adam Clune, Matt Dufty, Kaide Ellis, Poasa Faamausili, Max Feagai, Jackson Ford, Tyrell Fuimaono, Ben Hunt, Jaiyden Hunt, Josh Kerr, Blake Lawrie, Zac Lomax, Andrew McCullough, Trent Merrin, Corey Norman, Jordan Pereira, Cody Ramsey, Mikaele Ravalawa, Tariq Sims, Jayden Sullivan, Paul Vaughan, Brayden Wiliame

Who will win the Charity Shield?

Predicting a winner here likely comes down to how many minutes each coach gives to their best quality players. Souths had Mitchell, Johnston, Walker and Marshall all play decent minutes in the competitive All Stars match last week.

That makes us think Wayne Bennett is likely to limit the quarters involvement quite heavily. Especially Latrell Mitchell who didn't finish last years campaign due to a severe hamstring injury. Plus given the fact that Bennett likely already knows the make up of his 17 for round 1 we're expecting the big names to play no more than 40-60 minutes.

The Dragons are one of the favourites for this years wooden spoon. New coach Anthony Griffin likely only has a handful of players locked into the starting side. There's spots up for grabs in the backline, halves, hooker and forward pack. His players will surely be desperate to make an impression.

For that reason we're going to lean towards the Dragons. Yes, even though Souths squad is still better overall than the Dragons, they're likely to play higher quality players for more minutes. Dragons to break Souths Charity Shield reign by sneaking home by six points or less.

Image source: Kayo Sports website

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