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South Sydney have got their season back on track with a gutsy victory over the Warriors, running out 28-6 winners in a monsoon at Mt Smart Stadium.
If champion sides are built on defence and resilience, then this Souths team, missing key players and away at one of the league’s form teams in terrible conditions, might well be in with a shout at the end of the year.
The scoreline looked comfortable by the end, but came after Souths survived a massive onslaught from the hosts, who had all the ball and field position early on, before the Bunnies turned the tables for just their second win in six.
Alex Johnston grabbed a double, debutant Tyrone Munro scored one and set up another for Blake Taaffe and Cam Murray also crossed.
But first and foremost, this was based on defence. The sight of the Souths players celebrating tackles and mistakes by the opposition showed how much this one meant to them.
They’ve been far below their best and really needed this one. Without Campbell Graham, Isaiah Tass and Latrell Mitchell, they would have had plenty of excuses to drop another game, but never looked like doing so.
The Warriors have plenty of runs on the board in 2023, but this was far from their best showing. They failed to make the most of their early supremacy and were run down late. Once the Bunnies got the lead, they were always favourites.
Andrew Webster can look at this as a lesson in the level that his side need to reach. They have now lost to the Bunnies, Broncos and Roosters on home turf. The Kiwis have been great, but they’re not quite there yet.
They had Addin Fonua-Blake sin-binned, too, which could cause them problems down the line with a place in the finals still up for grabs.
Souths learned a lot about themselves in the opening stages. Their defence has gone to rack and ruin in recent weeks, and it got a serious working over, with 12 sets to five in the opening quarter hour before Marcelo Montoya was finally able to open the scoring.
The penalty count, the conditions and the relentlessness of their opposition were all going against South Sydney, but they kept their resolve in a time when they could have folded early.
It wasn’t just commitment, however. Demetriou had clearly told his men to defend narrow and offer the wingers a chance: Dallin Watene-Zelezniak got some space early but was crowded out, and while Montoya did get over, it was on a shortside play.
The Warriors shied away from the sidelines, in deference to the wet weather, but when the Bunnies got their crack, they did no such thing.
Souths were committed to playing their footy in spite of the slippery ball and were rewarded. The defence earned them the right to play it, and they reaped the rewards.
At this time of year, the emphasis shifts from performances to results, but Souths can be happy with both.
They know they’ll be in the mix at the end, so turning up on occasions like this when everything goes against them early will hold them in good stead come the pointy part of the year.
On top of that, they’ve also arrested a slide that imperilled their top four chances. Now, they have the easiest run in – on paper at least – and a superb chance to get that second shot in the finals.
There’s a lot of parallels for the Warriors to their last loss at home to the Roosters in Round 9.
That game, played in a deluge in Auckland, saw them unable to put enough points on an experienced, battle-hardened side with the ultimate result that they lost when they might have won.
It’s understandable. This is a side in year one of a cycle and already massively overachieving. They don’t have the reps that Souths or, despite their poor form in 2023, the Roosters. Sometimes that counts for a lot. They’ll learn from this.
But – and this might be the worrying part – it is also a limitation of their style. The Warriors go-to gameplan centres around making error free metres and relying on their stars to make something happen offensively.
That’ll help beat a lot of bad teams, and occasionally good teams who play badly, but if a half-decent side shows up and plays moderately well, it’ll generally fall over in front of them.
Souths had all the answers to the Warriors questions in attack, and asked plenty of their own that found the Kiwis lacking. They had no answer to the nous of Cody Walker or the deception of Damien Cook.
That’s alright, because they don’t have anyone quite in that bracket. All that comes in year two or three, as they add to this platform with a mite more endeavour.
Completion rates and conservatism can get you into the finals, but they rarely are enough against the best. The Warriors learned that tonight.