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Chris Heighington is tackled during the round 10 Wests Tigers V South Sydney Rabbitohs National Rugby League match at the SCG, Sunday 16th May 2010. Digital Image by Robb Cox © Action Photographics.
While the Dragons remain the benchmark and the Broncos and Knights hint at a revival, the match which could be the biggest turning point of the season was the Rabbitohs destruction of the Tigers at the SCG.
The Rabbitohs went into the game as underdogs, despite the Tigers having lost the past three matches, but the Bunnies once again found their mojo to again ramp up the hype around this year’s team.
It’s the second time this season the Rabbitohs have responded in such fashion in a big game. The first when they outmuscled the Bulldogs in Round 4 38-16, and that’s a good sign for a team hoping to play finals footy.
But while they’ll be plenty of backslapping going on around Redfern, they big question will be “just what did they beat?” The Tigers were woeful and simply didn’t look up for it.
I do pity Tigers fans, one minute their team is looking red hot with flick passes sticking and the side performing like world beaters, the next they look like park footballers at best.
Benji Marshall, so often the headliner grabber with some showstopping skills was instead jawdroppingly awful with his first couple of plays and the confident swagger that you expect from the Tigers soon resembled a limp.
The doors of the sheds were locked post game as the players were given some home truths and one suspects they need to respond next Friday in Newcastle to order to get their season back on track.
While some of my pity was heading out to Tigers fans, some was also going to Nathan Merritt.
On a weekend in which even a few Sharks players were being talked up for Origin, Merritt scored a hat-trick but it probably wouldn’t have raised an eyebrow of the selectors.
I’ll be honest, I probably wouldn’t pick him this year but he’s been a very consistent performer for Souths but for some reason has himself tagged as a player who wouldn’t cut it at State of Origin.
I don’t want to bring race into it, but for whatever reason Nathan Merritt like Luke Patten will probably end a fairly glittering career with plenty of memories, stacks of points but no Sky blue jumper.
Now, I believe I wrote them off a few weeks ago, but is that the Broncos and the Knights putting a run together?
The Broncos look like a completely different side from three weeks ago and the Knights dispatched the Roosters in impressive fashion.
Such is the nature of this competition that you’ll only need two decent consecutive results and you’ll start flying up the table, but both teams have shown that they have the cattle to at least match it with those challenging for positions 5-8.
Like everyone else the next question will be how they survive the Origin period, the list of absentees going up over the next 48 hours.
Bring it on.
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