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“If it’s high enough, if it’s long enough, if it’s straight between the posts…”
So goes the refrain of The Day John Sattler Broke His Jaw, Perry Keyes’ tribute to the Souths legend whom the club farewelled with a minute’s silence prior to kick off.
The chorus came true 82 minutes later as Lachlan Ilias’s field goal sailed through to deliver Souths a 13-12 win over Manly in Golden Point.
13 points, just like Sattler’s famous shirt number, against the club he famously downed in the 1970 Grand Final. You couldn’t script a finish like it. The stadium PA played the sound of Sattler singing the Souths’ victory song moments after full time and the previously raucous crowd stopped in silence.
It was a fittingly dramatic, if slightly stop-start clash between two of the competition’s heavyweights and, again in the 2023 NRL, an incredibly closer-fought battle. Defences were on top and largely excellent, especially late on as fatigue played a huge factor.
Cam Murray, playing his own Sattler tribute, did the full game in the 13 jumper in the middle in, putting in 50 tackles amid some of the toughest footy seen so far this year.
Both Latrell Mitchell and Daly Cherry-Evans missed their attempts in regulation time, but after Josh Aloiai’s mistake in the early reaches of Golden Point, Ilias did the business.
“Coming out on the field and looking up at the scoreboard with 13 points, John’s number, having his family here today is pretty special,” said Jason Demetriou.
“Right through the club, we won all eight games today, and that’s a reflection of what Satts meant to the club. For our three women’s and five men’s teams to win is a great tribute.
“We didn’t talk about it a great deal as a team because we could see it, it was everywhere, it was evident throughout the club. I felt at times tonight we didn’t deserve to lose that game and I’m thankful we got the two points.”
This had been billed as Latrell v Tom Trbojevic, but both were shut down impressively by both sides’ defensive structures. Latrell is hard to keep out of a game, but was marshalled expertly by Manly and barely got a touch until his late field goal attempt, which he badly mishit.
Turbo is even tougher to suppress, and Souths kept him to a yardage role and little more, with one strong run that came close before the break and very little else.
Instead, it was the tackling that came to the fore. Neither of these sides would have been known for their defence in the past, and both would have expected to show more with the ball than without it.
Yet, it was a true slugfest. In the long run, that will likely benefit both teams as they can show much improvement out of possession to add to what they already have with the footy.
“Both teams defensively were outstanding,” said Anthony Seibold. “13-12 a couple of weeks into the season with both teams who have a lot of threats. Both did a good job in terms of taking away that threat.
“We knew there wasn’t going to be many points in it and we were confident that defensively we could hold our hands up, so for us to get in an arm wrestle was something that we wanted to experience and see if we could come out the other side. We just weren’t quite good enough in building pressure when we had some opportunities.”
It looked like it was going to be a long evening for Cody Walker. His first kick was horrendous, lofted well beyond its target, and in his first good attacking moment, Walker chucked a pass to nobody.
Just when it looked like things were really going south, however, he struck back. Walker’s first was all heart and commitment, chasing a lost cause kick and getting to it within centimetres of the dead ball line, and his second was classic Cody, challenging the edge defender and ghosting between them.
In recent weeks, he’s been a little off it and easily led astray, allowing the red mist to descend and distract him from his best footy.
Tonight was a win for Walker’s temperament as much as his play: though there was a bit of a stink, and plenty of adversity, the five eighth didn’t allow himself to be dragged out of the game.
“He gives me a headache, but jeez, I love him,” said Demetriou. “He’s just so passionate about wanting to do well. It was quite frustrating for us, we were creating half chances and looking threatening, but we weren’t nailing them.
He went looking for the footy and his first try, he had no right to score that. I’m really proud of him tonight.”
Souths were scratching around for middles after a spate of injuries, but Jason Demetriou’s call to shift Keaon Koloamatangi away from his usual station on the right edge backfired badly.
The Bunnies are without Jai Arrow, Hame Sele, Tevita Tatola and Shaq Mitchell, so it is understandable that they had to be creative with their props, but it was clear from early on that Koloamatangi was not the correct call.
It removed one of Souths’ most potent weapons from their attack. Several times in the first half, Lachlan Ilias found his edge forward on a crash ball, but Michael Chee Kan, serviceable as he was, is not Koloamatangi.
In the middle, Keaon wasn’t effective, failing to imprint himself on the Manly forwards. He busted out 65 minutes in the front row, had a break of two minutes and then went back onto his edge. His effort couldn’t be faulted and pumping out those numbers in a game like this is mighty impressive stuff.
They got there in the end, but for most of the game, Souths lost one of their best attacking options and didn’t gain anything from it.
“I spoke to the players in the week about the choice to start Keoan on an edge and then push through the middle or just starting him in the middle,” said Demetriou.
“I had a good conversation with him early in the week and I was so proud of his response. He said ‘whatever you need me to do, I’ll do it, I’ll play 80’. That’s what we needed tonight, people with that attitude.”
Daly Cherry-Evans is built for this kind of game. His season started superbly with a hat trick against the Bulldogs, but that level of tryscoring was the anomaly. This was trademark Chez, marshalling the team around and showing all the nous in the world to nab his interception try, reading Cam Murray’s pass like yesterday’s newspaper.
DCE is also improving the man next to him immensely. Josh Schuster, who missed Round 1, sprung into life in Round 3 with a superb performance. Like the bowler who takes wickets thanks to the economy of their partner at the other end, Schuster must pay tribute to Cherry-Evans, who does all the difficult stuff so he doesn’t have to.
Schuster showed all of his skills with a series of no look passes and goosesteps, but he gets that freedom from knowing all the kicking, organising and leadership is under control.
Manly’s hooking rotation was disrupted by a shoulder injury to Lachlan Croker, with Karl Lawton drafted in as a replacement. Lawton was fine – a lot better than his last outing against Souths, in which he was sent off – but the real magic came when Kaeo Weekes entered.
Lawton was removed after half an hour and Weekes was entrusted with key phase either side of half time. He didn’t let his side down.
Weekes has impressed coming through the lower grades and has been around the first team for a while, but has rarely got extended minutes in the NRL. Tonight, he showed just how good he can be, with plenty of deception around the ruck and a few dangerous, jinking carries.
He was a fullback coming through and still moves like one, with speed and evasion.
Crucially, he was more than up to the task in defence, which is always likely to be the biggest ask for rookies coming into the NRL, and doubly so when switching from the back to the front.
“Karl Lawton has had an ACL for nine months and had two games of reserve grade where he’s had some minutes, so for him to come into a high-quality game against a good side, he did some really good things,” said Seibold.
“He (Weekes) came through as a half and played a couple of games as a 9 last year, and his value is his utility. Kaeo Weekes is a fantastic 14 for us. We like his speed out of dummy half, he’s got some similar attributes to someone like Damien Cook who is quick out of there.”