The whole media, not just one person.

When doing such a Power Ranking, fans just don’t consider what I call the strength of schedule.

The Dragons defeating a lowly and poor Titans team doesn’t rate in my book.

The Raiders defeated a poor flash-in-the-pan Knights.

Parramatta didn’t go on with it in the second half, the Dogs will struggle this season again.

Manly defeated Souths with 3 main backs out and received all of the penalties. 3 dropped balls and 3 bad missed tackles was the difference in the end.

The Panthers and Storm game was extremely low-quality with only 1 try.
The attack was sub-par.
It was a drop-athon with 25 errors.
It was a missed tackle-athon with 75
It was an ill-disciplined affair with a combined 21 major breaches.
Yet the commentators call that a great game… What game were they watching?
The Dolphins were pathetic.
I didn’t see the Rorters or the Sharks games.

Probably, due to the fact the Knights were pathetic!

The question I would like answered is…
Why does every Journo mention the Rabbitohs from last season?

Give it a rest for fs sake.
The Rabbitohs went from 7th in 2022 to 9th in 2023.
Injuries hammed the Rabbitohs.

Please tell me…

Why doesn’t anyone mention the Eels falling from 4th and a Grand Final in 2022 to 10th in 2023? That was a greater drop.

OR the Cowboys sliding from 3rd in 2022 to 11th in 2023 which was the worst of the 3?

Journos… Get off the Rabbitohs backs and pick on someone else for a change!

I didn’t bother reading any of that but the secret ingredient to winning the comp is simply…

1) HOLD the FRIGGING ball and MAKE your BLOODY tackles!

Rabbitoh Members and True Fans are getting sick of the poor excuses and the propaganda.

2) Demetriou is 70% of the Problem, Ellison is 20% and Solly is the other 10% of the problem!

The reason is poor recruitment and retention.

3) Team selections???

How is selecting J Host and Havili better than Tallis Duncan and Shaq Mitchell???

Lachlan Ilias is a Reserve Grade standard halfback.

It is all mind-boggling.

4) The Sam issue last year is real and it still affects the fans!

If Demetriou had listened to Sam, the Rabbitohs would have won 4 extra games and made the Top 4.

I expect Demetriou to be Sacked by Rd 11 if he continues to refuse to listen to voices other than his own.

After Rd 11, the Rabbitohs will be lucky to have won 2 games…
The Dogs and Dragons!

Why would League in Australia want anything to do with a broke and boring game called Rugba YAWNion?

OK, we will do that Zexers Choppy!

The Rabbitohs Management and Medical Staff screwed the pooch on this one!

Why didn’t Campbell Graham have surgery after Rd 1 last season?

Why didn’t he have the Surgery a week after the season finished in September?

Why did they wait until 4 weeks before the new season starts?

These are the questions that need answering!

Manly can have the fastest backs in the comp but if their lazy forwards can;t get them out to the 40, what good will they be?

They need to rely on errors from other teams to get anywhere in attack.

Their defence is ordinary at best.

Rabbitohs by 20 in Vegas.

The Rabbitohs should have one priority this season…

Hold the bloody ball.

Most of them were off 5th tackle kicks, not great cut-out passes to put the Winger over in the corner.

OH, another thing…

The injury Adam Reynolds suffered at Broncos training today on his right foot…

That is the same foot that has been plaguing him when he injured it on Rd 1, 2018 playing for Souths.

He consequently missed 3 games and he had pulled out of plenty of midweek training sessions during that season and had further complications in the pre-season of 2020.

Adam is a tough little bugger as he hasn’t missed many games at all whilst at Souths.

He has missed 8 games in 2 seasons at the Shoncos!

It is ridiculous trying to compare Ilias who is a 2nd year, 51-game rookie with only 2 Reggies games in 2020 and 2021 to…

Adam Reynolds who is a 13th-season, 274-game veteran with a Premiership, and 3 GFs and 4 Origin games…

Allow me to give you all a History lesson down memory lane…

When Reynolds was a Rookie John Sutton ran the team from 2012 to midway through 2014.

Reynolds didn’t do very much in 2012 and 2013 except Kick on the 5th tackle.

You just can’t compare apples with oranges.

You have no idea at all mate.

Walker is on $650k at Souths in 2024 & 2025 as he accepted less in order for the club to re-sign Mitchell, Cook, Murray, Arrow, Graham and Koloamatangi.

They all took unders to stay except Mitchell.

Using your bad logic then Walker shouldn’t be able to be selected at 6 either? As he is being paid less than Wighton who is on an average of $850k over 4 years.

The NRL can’t dictate to any club where players are selected regardless of what they are on.

Using your theory, Illias should not be allowed to be selected at halfback as he is only on $300k per season.

Using your theory only Halfbacks who are on at least $900k can be selected.

Think about that.

There is no way in hell that Walker will be moved to the right side as the Number 7.

Wighton is no 5/8 and won’t be in the Rabbitohs halves!

There are plenty of comments and suggestions regarding Souths backline but I must remind you all that Jack Wighton will miss 3 games due to suspension.

He will miss the All-Stars game plus Rounds 1 and 2.

Tass will get a chance to change the coach’s mind about where Jack plays when he returns.

As far as most Souths fans are concerned Mitchell, Johnston, Graham and Munro are locked in.

Left-Centre is the only position up for discussion in the backline.

Tass gets the first crack, the other option when Wighton returns is to play him on the left edge.

Reports that Koloamatangi is training on the Left Edge concern me as he has that combination on the right side with Ilias and Graham.

My Strongest Rabbitohs team when all players are available is…

1 L Mitchell 2 Johnston 3 Graham(vc) 4 Tass 5 Munro 6 Walker 7 Ilias
8 Tatola 9 Cook 10 Arrow 11 Koloamatangi 12 Wighton 13 Murray(c)
14 Duncan 15 Moale 16 S Mitchell 17 Burgess
18 Havili 19 Host 20 Keppie 21 Hawkins 22 Milne

Other squad members:
Thompson, Te Hau, Gray, Mamouzelos, Chee-Kam, Lovett, DS Fafita

One more Prop is to be added!

I see you have forgotten about Alex Johnston!

Campbell Graham is the best Centre in the game…

That is a massive long bow!

Talking about that “lethal” Left Side attack…

Keaon Koloamatangi is now training on the Rabbitohs’ Left-Edge at pre-season training.

WOW…
A big article on Souths 2023 woes yet Lachlan Ilias… the pretend halfback of the competition wasn’t mentioned once?

Not sure why not?

Did you blokes know that Ilias was an outside centre in YAWNion before coming over to League?

The Rabbitohs injuries from Rd 11 were documented and correct.

No club can win when all of their middles are out.

The infamous in-fighting… That can all be attributed to Jason Demetriou not listening to his assistants. That all came about when Sam Burgess, Cody Walker and Cam Murray wanted Ilias dropped to our Reggies.

Against the Broncos, Ilias did not have a single kick in the entire game, what was that all about?

The biggest game of the year yet Ilias goes missing… That is what caused all the infighting at the club.

The bops wanted Blake Taaffe promoted as our halfback but Latrell being out injured “again”, Demetriou didn’t have the guts to take a chance.

Even Dean Hawkins would have been a better choice.

Well, that is it in a nutshell.

Everyone talks about Balmain and 1969 but if they had today’s video Ref in place, the Rabbitohs would have led 3 nil early in the first half, possibly 5 nil if Simmsy kicked the conversion.

You see Brian James scored a fair try at the Members’ corner in front of the Noble Stand.

The touch judged waved him touch in goal and NO TRY…

A slow-motion frame-by-frame video replay showed that the Balmain winger took out the corner post, NOT James, video evidence actually did confirm that he did in fact get the ball down…

That would have been 3 or 5 nil early in the first half, considering the final score was 11 to 2, the Rabbitohs may well have broken the Tiggers early.

Tony… The Rich clubs could afford it.

Canterbury pinched Wests and Newtown players, St George pinched Sharks players, Easts pinched Souths players and Parra pinched Penrith players…

Manly pinched everyone’s players but preferred Norths, Souths and Newtown players.

Not sure about Norths and Balmain.

The poorer clubs like Souths, Newtown, Wests and Cronulla could not keep any of their very best kids.

They are a great pack of forwards who always get the credit but the Souths’ backs were also fantastic,

Money wrecked the Rabbitohs but so did their antiquated board.

I remember my dad who did play for the Rabbitohs in the 50s, he said that many Rabbitohs players were underpaid as the thinking back then was that you worked all week for a living and was paid so you play for the jersey on the weekend being a sport.

The game was always professional and compared to today’s standards, it seems they played for a pittance…

But they didn’t, compared to the average or minimum wage of any era the players still were paid reasonably well.

Let us use John O’Neil as an example…

When he left Souths to go to Manly for money he signed on for $10,000 plus $200 per win and $100 per loss… He said so himself in an Interview years later…

In 1972 he played 17 games, winning 15, Drew 1 and a loss for a total of $3,250 plus his sign-on fee so a Total of $13,250.00 He possibly would have received a bonus for winning the comp.

Back then the players trained for 2 hours, 2 or 3 times per week and played 80 minutes on game day. A total of about 7 hours per week, let us say 8 hours just to go over…
Pre-seasons ran for 8 weeks including trials with the season lasting for some 24 weeks so 32 weeks in total.

In 1972 the Minimum wage was $2 per hour, 40 hours per week OR $4,160.00 per annum.
The Average wage was $6,302.00 per annum.

How does $13,250.00 look for 32 weeks of work at 8 hours per week?

Pretty darn good if we break it down that is roughly $51.75 per hour.

Sure there was other work that could be included but not calculated such as Interviews, Meet the fans days, team BBQs, Junior Presentation commitments, sponsors and so on but pretty bloody good.

I am of the belief that you pick your best 13 players then work out the positions.

With Wighton’s arrival, there will be 3 positions plus a bench spot that will need to be decided on.
Left-Centre. Left-Edge, Right-Wing plus the Utility/Forward role on the bench.

This is my Strongest Rabbitohs squad if everyone is fit…
1 L Mitchell, 2 A Johnston, 3 I Tass, 4 C Graham, 5 T Munro, 6 C Walker, 7 L Ilias, 8 T Tatola, 9 D Cook, 10 J Arrow, 11 K Koloamatangi, 12 J Wighton, 13 C Murray…
Bench… 14 T Duncan, 15 S Keppie, 16 S Mitchell, 17 T Burgess.
Reserves…
18 S Havili, 19 P Mamouzelos, 20 D Moale, 21 I Thompson, 22 T Milne, 23 J Host, 24 D Hawkins, 25 M Chee-Kam, 26 B Lovett, 27 D Suluka-Fifita, 28 L Te Hau

Roster Positions 29 and 30 are yet to be filled!
One more Prop and a genuine utility would be good
Brock Gray may yet be added!

Development Players…
Liam Le Blanc, Lock/Prop, Norths Devils
Haizyn Mellars, Centre, Wynnum-Manly
Jye Gray, Halfback, Burleigh Bears
Thomas Fletcher, Edge, Coonamble Bears