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Onya Rabbitohs, you brained it. But as the temporary tattoos and 90-proof breath start to fade after a week of rampant ceremony, it’s time for bed so the rest of us losers can candidly discuss things.
Firstly, dynasty talk. While we have all given the obligatory mention to the back-to-back challenge in the carbonated days following South Sydney’s drought-breaking win, the sobering and fun-free fact is that repeating the feat next year will be like pushing a Zorb full of bloated former greats up a mountainside of mayonnaise.
I know I’m playing the crabby Dean who shuts down the campus knees-up here, but it’s true.
The same drunken promises have been made at the same party every year for the last 20 seasons, and the sad fact is that the NRL’s encircling troupe of enigmatic variables will always collude to ensure it doesn’t happen.
Unfortunately, no amount of confidence earned from winning throwaway rings and James Packer’s kablingey will be enough. There are just too many factors that will link arms with that famous current trend of ‘everybody gets a turn of the trophy’ to ensure another red and green charge is blockaded.
As we all know, not since the superstar Brisbane Broncos side of 1992/93 has any club defended a title. Nobody really knows why, but regardless of how strong a club looks in the aftermath of their premiership season, and no matter how well they start, fate always ends up giving them the finger.
It’s a pattern of such strength that it couldn’t even be cracked by a souped-up and double-paid Megatron outfit like the Melbourne Storm of the late noughties.
So while South Sydney’s impressive tasering of their own criminally-heavy history on Sunday night was a mammoth task achieved, the beast they face next year is much more complex, and even possibly NRL sanctioned.
But before they deal with the fairness sequence initiative of the season proper, there is another hurdle in their path. It’s a devilishly taxing summer, and it’s sure to reduce the usual battery-charging nature of the long holiday break to a series of rudimentary hiatuses.
Right here, this is the second nail in their title defence. Unfathomably, in the time they should be preening, perving and sleeping in, the footballers of Souths will be doing something unspeakable for the sunshine months – playing footy.
Being the team of handy talent that they have just proven themselves to be on the biggest stage, they will be one of the clubs in the higher tax bracket for Four Nations duty – so there’s another four weeks of body contact added to their season.
Then after a break where their stars will have just enough time to do a crossword, there will be the Auckland Nines, the Indigenous All Stars fixture and Rusty’s World Club Challenge on steroids – again, all matches that will involve a gamut of championship Bunnies in high demand.
With bodies twice-cooked from a searing premiership campaign and a caramelising after-party, plus the commitments of above, preparations will be abbreviated. A proper pre-season? Ain’t nobody got time for dat.
Add to this a 25 per cent reduction in Burgess, a 100 per cent reduction in Holmes a Court, injuries, the usual drop in desire from players post-premiership, Origin, the hunter becoming the hunted, the proliferation among opposition teams of Fluid Ice, and the NRL’s directive for equality, and you’ve got yourself a brand new premier in 2015.
Okay, so this is a monumental buzzkill in the wake of a great sporting story, but they were given an open-top bus and a set of keys that will open any kebab caravan in the Sydney city area, so they’ll keep. Plus, if an old cohort’s observations ring true, there could be a slow-burning consolation prize to go with it. Heaps less cool, but something nonetheless.
Former coach John Lang believes that if the usual copycatting of the winning blueprint eventuates – and let’s face it, coaches are an unimaginative bunch – then the tedium of wrestling could be replaced by the Souths bulked-up approach of marching the ball carrier three blocks back down the road before burying them under a pile of industrial fridges.
“Everyone was copying the Melbourne [approach to] hold the ball carrier up, sort of dance with them and take them down slowly to slow the play-the-ball down. Souths have turned that right around and a lot of sides will copy it,” Lang warbled in his Kermit tones to the Sydney Morning Herald‘s Daniel Lane.
“Souths get in and do the opposite, they drive and drive their opposition back.
“People talk about Souths and the wrestle, but I say their big thing is they have a very strong, driving defence.”
Could it be true? A world without wrestling? No more sleeper holds and Gus Gould bleating?
It’s interesting stuff, but being a man who doesn’t really pay much attention to footy – to be honest, I’m always distracted at game time watching Brad Fittler search the sidelines for tulips – I would rather throw it open to the experts in the Garden of Roar.
We agree that Souths can’t win the competition in 2015, but will this team’s new style of brawn-based manhandling be remembered as the pioneers who eradicated the wrestle? Or is Johnny looking through the rose specs?