NRL 2016 ladder countdown: South Sydney Rabbitohs (12th)

Oh how the mighty have fallen. The South Sydney Rabbitohs went from ‘forgetting how to lose’ to ‘forgetting how to not implode’ in the space of a premiership season.

They won the nines, then went on an impressive early streak that really made people wonder if they could go back to back. George Burgess was in amazing form, Glenn Stewart was back to his 2011 best, the halves were maintaining their form from 2014 and the backs were firing.

Then they suffered some injuries to key personal like Stewart and Adam Reynolds, so then they suffered a little on the field which was expected. Then most of their injured players came back, and the Rabbitohs responded by, well, playing worse. It was incredible to watch honestly.

Their implosion towards the end of last season was heartbreaking for Souths fans, but amusing for non-Souths fans considering how hyped up they were at the start of the season. They just looked completely lost at the back end of the year apart from one game against the Cowboys.

They were a top four candidate, then they proceeded to lose four of their last five regular season games and limped into seventh. They were then eliminated week one of the finals after a pitiful display against Cronulla.

Greg Inglis looked buggered, Stewart was struggling, the halves weren’t clicking, and the Burgess brothers had stepped down a notch.

There were a lot of explanations from people for this lack of form, with niggling player injuries and player disharmony being the two most prominent theories. In truth it was probably a combination of the two, which is very worrying for Souths fans, given what player disharmony did to Manly in 2014 and 2015.

However, over the off-season there was a lot of changes to the Rabbitohs, with the highlight being the return of the prodigal son, Sam Burgess. His return to the club will coincide with the arrival of Damien Cook, Michael Oldfield and Hymel Hunt.

However the Souths have lost a lot of quality players, namely Issac Luke, Glenn Stewart, Chris McQueen, Tim Grant and Dylan Walker. These transfers mean that the Rabbitohs will field a very different squad next year.

But, will the changes that were made have a positive effect on the side, or will they continue the form they showed last year and keep sliding down the ladder? Well, let’s find out, starting with a look at their first choice side.

1. Greg Inglis
2. Alex Johnston
3. Bryson Goodwin
4. Kirisome Auva’a
5. Aaron Gray
6. Luke Keary
7. Alex Reynolds
8. George Burgess
9. Cameron McInnes
10. David Tyrell
11. Chris Grevsmuhl
12. John Sutton
13. Sam Burgess
14. Damien Cook
15. Tom Burgess
16. Jason Clark
17. Kyle Turner

Strengths
The Burgess brothers are very good players, and make up most of the middle forwards for South Sydney. George Burgess is a great player and for the first half of last year was one of the competition’s premier forwards.

He really looked like he was picking up where his brother left off. However, while his intensity plummeted halfway through last year (in fact most South’s players did) I think that now that his brother Sam is there his intensity will keep up for a whole season.

I would write about Tom Burgess too, but it would literally be the same as George’s write up.

Then we get to Sam Burgess, who before the 2014 season was a very good forward but during 2014 was the best forward I have ever seen play the game. Forget what I said about Aaron Woods being the best forward in the game, Sam Burgess is better – based on his 2014 form anyway.

If he can find a way to repeat that form then this will be one of the better prop rotations, since they can all play a fair amount of minutes and the remaining props for South Sydney are decent first graders that do their jobs.

I should add that I do not think Sam Burgess will come back and play as well as he did in 2014. I think that he was just desperate to get a premiership before he left to Union, and now he will lack that drive that put him in such amazing form, but he will still be a great forward.

Alex Johnston is one of the best wingers in the comp, he is just an incredible finisher and blindingly quick. He might be a fairly substandard player when playing fullback but there is a reason he has a borderline ridiculous try scoring rate of approximately .88 tries a game.

A lot of those tries may have been handed to him on a Greg Inglis shaped platter, but there were enough of them where he demonstrated enough great footwork and speed to really make him look talented.

Kirisome Auva’a is also a very good young player. He provides the side with some real mongrel, which the Rabbitohs missed dearly during his suspension last year.

Adam Reynolds and Luke Keary are one of the best young half combinations in the game. Reynolds may have had a disappointing 2015 due to injuries, while Keary had a disappointing 2015 due to poor form but they both showed enough to demonstrate that yes, they are certainly talented.

If Adam Reynolds can remain uninjured he needs to be the NSW halfback come State of Origin time. His kicking game is the best in the entire league, and his passing game is pretty top notch too. He is just a great organiser that I think NSW will need if they want to be a threat to that Queensland team this year.

Damien Cook is a great dummy half, and I think really should be picked ahead of McInnes, with McInnes not even featuring in the squad. But unfortunately I know that isn’t going to happen. Cook was one of the form players of the comp at the Bulldogs, and I am shocked that Des didn’t tell Michael Lichaa to leave instead of Cook. He is just so fast and such a dangerous dummy half runner that sides will always have to be on the lookout for him.

Chris Grevsmuhl was one of the most consistent players for the Rabbitohs in 2015 and I am sure that there are many in redfern that are upset that he has already signed with Penrith. This kid will be a Queensland representative player in a few years.

Fortunately for South Sydney, they have a lot of talent in the second row coming up the ranks. One player in particular is Angus Crichton, who impressed the hell out of me in the 2015 Auckland Nines and other times I have witnessed him perform. He will probably crack the first grade side sometime this year.

Weaknesses
Oh boy, am I going to upset a few people in this section, if I hadn’t already by putting South Sydney so low.

Greg Inglis is a liability for South Sydney. That’s right, I know what I am saying. Now you could say that Greg Inglis is one of the best players in the game when he is on song and trying and I would agree with you there.

However, he is never on song consistently and seems to be carrying a lot of injuries now. There is a reason Melbourne picked Slater, Cronk and Smith over Inglis back in 2010.

Greg Inglis is a guy who seems to have great starts to the year, then once State of Origin finishes he just drops off of the face of the planet and never tries again. This has never been more obvious than it was last year, where after a very impressive State of Origin Game 3 performance he started lazily walking around in his kick returns and just became a complete non-factor.

This happened in the All Stars match as well, he started off on fire, and then by then end of the game when it was on the line he was lazily returning kicks and just looking like he just couldn’t be bothered anymore.

He is just too inconsistent for the huge amount of money he is on. Add to that the constant reports he wants to join the Broncos and I can’t see him being worth his pay. This side will be better off when he is gone, so they can use his cap space for someone consistent.

John Sutton also needs to go as soon as possible. His form plummeted last year and his performance in the charity shield was far from impressive. He just doesn’t run hard enough, tackle well enough or have the ball playing skills he needs to be a first grader anymore. He might be a South Sydney legend, but he needs to be dropped like the Raiders axed Terry Campese.

Michael Maguire may be a premiership winning coach who has a very good win/loss record and has yet to miss the finals in his career. However with constant reports and rumours of player disharmony partly due to him demanding far too much from his players and the rumour that the loss of Issac Luke was due to his poor relationship with Maguire I think he needs to go.

If you lose the dressing room you are done as a coach and that is what I think he has done. I am not saying he should stop coaching, but it would be best not only for him but for the Rabbitohs as well if he moved clubs and focused more on his relationship with the players.

Speaking of infighting, I don’t think I have ever seen a more dysfunctional-sounding club. Maybe late 2014 Manly, but that is about it. It seems that every few weeks there is another story.

From Maguire losing the dressing room, to Adam Reynolds requesting a release, to the players being annoyed that Chris McQueen was pushed out of the squad to fit Sam Burgess and finally the recent Russell Crowe and Luke Keary argument. From what I can gather, both of the young halves want to leave. Proof of that is the urgency of the Rabbitohs re-signing Cody Walker and their desperate chase of Cooper Cronk.

It seems that player harmony in the club is in complete shambles and I wouldn’t be surprised to see a mass exodus of players in the near future. I can already tell a lot of Rabbitohs fans will say that these rumours are false, but I cannot believe that. With the shear amount that are coming out, some of them have to be true.

But now it is time to talk about the general quality of the Rabbitohs squad. Is it better than it was last year? No it isn’t. They lost an Australian representative centre, one of the best dummy halves in the game, a former Clive Churchill medallist and a former State of Origin representative backrower, and they have only really gained Damien Cook and Sam Burgess.

I think people really are overrating the Sam Burgess signing. It is like some people think he is literally the sole reason Souths won the 2014 premiership, which is wrong. Sam Burgess may have been in excellent form that year, but so were Issac Luke, Dylan Walker, John Sutton, Adam Reynolds, Greg Inglis and Luke Keary.

Now Luke and Walker are gone, Reynolds and Keary both reportedly want out, Inglis is inconsistent and basically limping at this point, and Sutton’s form has plummeted. While I don’t think Sam Burgess will come back as good as he did in 2014, even if he does return at that form the team won’t play better.

Damien Cook may be good but he can’t replace the game’s second best dummy half, while Dylan Walker leaving takes a lot of potency out of the backline since he has no replacement. The squad is just too weak.

Expectations
We saw infighting destroy Manly in late 2014 and look what happened to them in 2015. Now the Rabbitohs are staring down a worryingly similar barrel. They collapsed last year and now their team looks weaker and reports of fights within the club are cropping up everywhere.

Thing is, if they can ignore the fighting I could see them make the eight. I could see the predicted 13th place Dragons making the eight, so I can definitely see South Sydney also making the eight.

But with the logjam of teams that will dominate most of the ladder in 2016 there is just too much negative about the Rabbitohs to put them any higher. I predict the infighting and weakened squad will cost the Rabbitohs dearly and that will mean they finish the year in 12th, just outside of the bottom four.

Conclusion
In the salary cap era if a side wins a premiership their roster will be ripped apart in the following few years. The Rabbitohs have been no exception to the rule, in fact it might still be occurring to them and wouldn’t be surprised if there are a few radical roster changes over the next year or so.

Unless things turn around at the Redfern club, I can’t see another premiership anytime soon. This team has forgotten how to be a premiership threat.