11th September 2024
Worst Season Finally Over
The boys had a final dig in their last game of the year, making the score respectable with a flurry of tries at the end of the game. But 2024 will go down as second worst on record as First Grade, Reserve Grade and U21s all finished second last, and will be compared to 1996 and 2006. If you extend this to all 5 grades Senior and Juniors ie including U19s and U17s, it becomes our worst season on record as a club for men's teams. 213 weeks of players out with injuries defined our season, as we regularly played with up to $6 mil of our salary cap on the sideline. Now for the 2025 rebuild.
End of the Burgess Era
A try and goal by Tom Burgess signalled the end of the Burgess brothers era, as Tom Burgess the last of the brothers still playing heads home to play out his career in England. There was rarely a game between 2009 and 2024, 16 seasons in total, when one of the famous four brothers failed to play a game for the Rabbitohs. Their power up the middle will be missed, many thanks for the memories boys.
Gagai Top Try scorer
In a year of opportunity for our fringe first grade players Jacob Gagai finished the year as our first grade Top Try Scorer with 9 tries. Latrell Mitchell end the season as our top point scorer with 98 points.
Cookie and Dean Hawkins bid farewell
The weekend saw a number of players play their final game for the Rabbitohs. Damien Cook bids farewell, and has been one of the most damaging hookers in the game during after his transformation as a fullback. Who will ever forget the way he openned up the opposition with his accelaration off the mark at dummy half, thanks Cookie. And also this weekend saw Dean Hawkins a lower grade clubman and reserve premiership winning captain also leave. Like many his age, covid suspending two season had a big impact on their development.
Women bow out
Our women suffered another loss on the weekend to bow out of finals contention. The season ended with another loss the following week, as the club gave some of the fringe squad members a run and game some valuable experiance. Daisy Gordon end as the womens team top try scorer with 6 tries. Maddie Studdon was the teams top point scorer with 36. Without the lure of a NRLW contract, during our NRLW exclusion since 2018, we are already seeing NRLW clubs cherry picking our better players late in the season.
RLPA need to clarify suspensions protocol
After all of the drama during the week over a 1 game suspension, which has effectively turned into a 10 game suspension for Latrell Mitchell. It is time for RLPA to step in and clarify the CBA protocol for NRL suspensions. The current NRL protocol states that suspensions must be served immediately. By delaying the 1 match suspension to Round 1 2025, they are in breach of their own protocol, as waiting for a player to become fit is not in the CBA guidelines, and effecively de-registered Latrell Mitchell for 6 months, without formally saying that, so they can make the suspension look like previous similar suspensions. The concern now turns to, what happens if he gets injured during pre-season training? The RLPA really needs to step in and sort this mess out, for all players. That's their job. They should not be expecting clubs to try and clarify the CBA on their behalf.
Round 27 - Stat Attack
Statistically it was poor this week. Completions dropped to 77% from 82% last week. Errors improved to 7 from 11 last week. We gave away 9 penalties and 4 6-again calls from 13 last week. Souths Effective 1st tackle improved to a average level of 34.4m from 52.1m last week. Our missed tackles improved to average level of 35 from 46 last week. Opposition offloads improved to 13 from 17 last week.
Looking at our left side defence - Munro-Milne-Walker-Host (1-2-2-5) improved to 10 from 12 missed tackles last week. On the right side Gagai-Kennar-DHawkins-Koloamatangi (3-6-2-0) improved to 11 from 18 missed tackles last week. Ruck defence Moale/Havili/LeBlanc-Cook/Mamouzelos-Burgess/Keppie-Duncan/Cook (3-1-9-1) improved to 14 from 16 missed tackles last week.
Our go forward improved to 1453m from 1235m last week. With our props made a very poor 340m compared to 288m last week. Keppie, Havili, Munro and Gagai made 10+m per run. Host, Duncan, Burgess, Cook, Munro, Milne and JGray made 100+m in the match. Defensively Cook was our best in the tackling raking up 48 tackles. Koloamatangi, Mamouzelos, Havili, LeBlanc and J.Gray didn't miss a tackle.
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Selected W-NSWRL Round 11 teams
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