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Wayne Bennett’s suggestion that the Rabbitohs, after giving his Newcastle Knights a merciless flogging on the weekend, might be “too predictable” to win the competition may have just been petulance during another tedious media inquiry.
Or it could be the clear-eyed assessment of a visionary.
Come Friday night we’ll have a pretty good idea. Souths meet the Manly Sea Eagles in a showdown of genuine contenders.
The other match of the night, between the Broncos and Canterbury, is fast looking like an encounter between teams whose recent performance rhymes with contenders but is far more disparaging.
It pains me to write this, but Manly are impressive. They seem to walk through obstacles that have derailed other clubs. Board disharmony, contract disputes, alleged player friction – still winning.
Betting scandals, sexual assault allegations, successful coach defecting – still winning.
They even dabbled with Stephen Dank, but on the field they march on.
It helps they have one of the best centres and captains in the game in Jamie Lyon. The fact he elects not to play State of Origin for New South Wales is a cherished gift for the Manly faithful, and all Queenslanders.
But they do have those who struggle with the rep season and injury. Anthony Watmough is only held together by scar tissue and agro; Steve Matai is mostly osteophytes and tatts; and Brett Stewart has to be the greatest NRL diabetic since Steve Renouf.
Last week against the Broncos, Manly actually were shaded in almost every statistic of the match – metres gained, offloads, line breaks, completions, missed tackles – except for that really important one, the score.
Their defence was impeccable and that relies on the intangible of attitude. Sure they have the choreography of modern league down pat: lock the ball, twist the head (hard to run straight when your chin’s pointing to the sideline), swivel the legs to the ground, and then peel off slowly as your defensive line readies. But it’s their composure to lock, twist, swivel and peel while everything burns around them which is so compelling.
Mind you, Brisbane gave them a lot of early encouragement. The Broncos had the ball for only 3 of the first 16 sets against Melbourne Storm the week before and were almost as charitable to the Sea Eagles – kicking off over the dead ball on the full and then snoozing while Daly Cherry-Evans scooted over the try line in the next set.
There have been rumours DCE might be considering a move to Brisbane for his next contract; perhaps by dropping the ball he was being kind to a future suitor. Then again, everyone says they might join Brisbane during contract negotiations these days. They rarely go through with it.
So far the big movers to the Broncos have been coach Bennett, who sacked himself after a horror year at his current club, a genuine rising star in Anthony Milford and a number of people who were looking for second chances – Ben Barba, Martin Kennedy and Todd Lowrie.
As for Cameron Smith, Greg Inglis, and Johnathan Thurston? Thanks but no thanks.
And there’s the rub for Bennett – you do need star-powered flare as well as predictable powerplay to win the title. Despite undoubted effort from the current roster, it appears Brisbane are short of both, whereas Manly have it in spades. Will Bennett be able to attract the talent?
In a weekend article, Storm coach Craig Bellamy queried what rugby league clubs want from coaches these days, with all the media and sponsor commitments.
Winning footy games is pretty much it. Do that and, as Manly can attest, you cover a lot of other problems.
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