MARK ‘SPUDD’ CARROLL: Wayne Bennett’s serve to South Sydney Rabbitohs spot on after 30-4 NRL loss to Knights
Wayne Bennett gave me another reminder of why I regret never playing under him after Souths crashed and burned at Magic Round.
There was no sugar coating the poor performance against Newcastle or using cliched and empty phrases to explain away the debacle.
Bennett simply questioned whether some of his players were worthy of first grade status and the pay packet that comes with it.
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By continuing you agree to our Terms and Privacy Policy.“They all get well paid, they all think they want to be first graders. Well, they have to play like first graders. It’s as simple as that,” he said through gritted teeth.
“They have to fix it. They have to own it first.”
It a typical between-the-eyes, no bullshit statement from the Clint Eastwood of coaches.
And I loved it.
It’s the kind of serve Bob Fulton used to give us if standards ever dropped and rarely did we not respond.
On the back of Bennett’s return to Redfern and a new look Latrell Mitchell, I tipped the Rabbitohs to be one of the big improvers in 2025.
I know they’ve run into some injuries but, boy, haven’t they been a major disappointment.
Newcastle came into the game with one of the worst attacking records after eight rounds of a season.
The Knights looked like they could have played until 3am in some games and still not scored a try.
But against Souths, suddenly Adam O’Brien’s team was transformed into the Harlem Globetrotters as they ran out easy 30-4 winners.
Souths missed 59 tackles – 59, that’s not a typo! – with props Sean Keppie and Junior Tatola responsible for 16 of them.
If a team is pouring through your middle like that, you’ve got major problems.
Bennett has been down this road many times before and knows the right buttons to push to get teams out of a hole.
So don’t count him out just yet.
I know I’m not.
As for the rest of Magic Round, I came away super impressed with Canberra and the Roosters and increasingly worried about the Dragons and Titans.
And what about Penrith?
Never count out a champion team.
