Tonight’s match between Wests Tigers and South Sydney is placed to be one of the most personal and gripping of the 2016 season.
Both the Tigers and the Bunnies broke a two-week winning streak last round, in close losses.
It was especially agonising for the Rabbitohs, who travelled all the way to Perth for the one Western Australian game of the season, only to lose at golden point.
In a season whose overtimes could almost add up to an entire game, their loss to the Titans was one of the most draining and heartbreaking.
It feels like a show of strength, then, that the Bunnies have named the exact same 17 for this week’s clash.
Friday night footy!
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Both teams will be anxious to prove that they haven’t lost their momentum and prove that if they lose, they can lose well.
The match is going to be all the more personal in that the last Rabbitohs’ loss was also against the Tigers at ANZ.
While the Tigers and the Bunnies aren’t traditional rivals, there’s always a bit of a local barny when two teams meet twice in the space of a couple of weeks.
At the same time, it anticipates the compressed, frenzied schedules of finals footy, and both teams will be treating this as critical in making the eight.
While the Round 9 match at ANZ may have been a victory for the Tigers, it was also the game that forced James Tedesco from the field – and from Origin contention.
Sure, Jordan Rankin may have swept up two tries as stand-in No.1 and guided the team to victories over the Knights and the Broncos, but ‘Teddy’ brings a different kind of gravitas and grace.
Add to that Robbie Farah returning as hooker and Elijah Taylor doing what he does best at lock and the Tigers are going to be a force to be reckoned with.
The NRL preview is correct in saying that it may be Greg Inglis who steps up against this new-and-renewed Tigers outfit.
As one of the game’s most inconsistent top-tier players, GI has a lot of triggers when it comes to achieving his potential.
One of those is the international or Origin spotlight. Another is whenever the pride of the Rabbitohs seems at stake. While Inglis can sometimes be a bit of a nonentity at a club level, he shows his true colours – cardinal and myrtle – whenever it feels like things are getting personal for Souths.
Combined with his increasingly fluid interchanges within the halves, as well as his excellent history of scoring against the Tigers, tonight may be his night.
After all, Inglis’ four-try burst against the Tigers at ANZ back in 2013 is the standard both teams must be measuring themselves against.
At the same time, the Tigers have a particularly good try record against the Bunnies, even if South Sydney have traditionally been the dominant team.
Teddy, in particular, has a better try-scoring record against the Bunnies than any other NRL outfit, which is going to make for an interesting combination against Cody Walker
Not only has Walker made the move to the fullback effortlessly, but he put in one of the very best performances of his career in the No.1 jersey in Perth last week.
In the leadup to that match, last week’s issue of Big League featured an interview with Walker. In the space of a couple of questions, Walker demonstrated all the attributes that make him such a promising fullback: calm, collected and impressively articulate about Indigenous issues and his heritage.
At the same time, it was clear that living up to the Souths No.1 jersey was a matter of personal pride.
That kind of calm focus is most deadly in passion matches, and you can bet Walker will bring his A-game against the Tigers, as well as bouncing off his own teammates. From the way the the Bunnies have rallied around him, you’d be hard pressed to remember that there was ever another Walker at Souths.
All in all, then, it promises to be a personal and passionate match of footy.
As the two inner-city teams, the Tigers and the Rabbitohs have always brought their own brand of gritty, grassroots, local culture to their clashes. Even in a venue as expansive and anonymous as ANZ, their matches have a homegrown and intensely charismatic quality.
Add to that all the dramas they’ve been through in the last couple of weeks, and I’m banking on footy drama at its finest.
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