Dropping Souths Sydney half-back Lachlan Ilias 'not that dramatic': Jason Demetriou

A cagey Jason Demetriou says his decision to drop Lachlan Ilias was “not that dramatic”, denying South Sydney’s winless start to the season has put pressure on his side to make changes.

The usually chatty Souths coach went into defence mode on Thursday after a week of headlines at Heffron Park, refusing to elaborate on his halfback selection call.

He also batted away questions about Latrell Mitchell’s expletive-laden radio interview and Josh Mansour’s critique of his coaching style.

But looking to Friday night’s grudge match against the Sydney Roosters, Demetriou believes his side is “not far off” clicking back into gear and putting their rough opening fortnight in the past.

Adam Reynolds’ successor at No.7, Ilias became a casualty of the Rabbitohs’ slow start to the season, error-prone and unable to ignite the side’s attack in losses to Manly and Brisbane.

Reigning NSW Cup Player of the Year Dean Hawkins will replace 23-year-old Ilias in the halves at Allianz Stadium for only his seventh first-grade game.

Demetriou vented his frustration with errors immediately after last week’s loss to the Broncos but on Thursday, refused to confirm why he had dropped Ilias.

“I won’t explain my reasoning,” he said.

“It’s a discussion for Lachy and myself. We’ve had that in depth and we’ll continue to have those discussions. It’s a step sideways to go forward again, and that’s how we’ll approach it.

“(Ilias) is fine. It’s footy. We pick 17 blokes every week. It’s not that dramatic.”

The coach said he had “no idea” how long Ilias would spend out of his first-grade side.

“We play Friday night and we go from there,” he said.

The coach denied Souths, hoping to recover from last season’s ninth-placed finish, felt under pressure internally as they ran the risk of falling to a 0-3 start.

“Inside the four walls, we’re rock solid, we’ve trained well and prepared well for a big game tomorrow night against the Roosters,” he said.

“(The noise) is outside the four walls so it’s not a problem for us.”

Demetriou was similarly terse speaking about Mitchell’s now-infamous interview with Triple M that followed last week’s loss to Brisbane.

Mitchell said “f***” four times and that he didn’t “care if I’m swearing” during the brief radio cross, prompting a face-to-face meeting with NRL chief executive Andrew Abdo on Wednesday night.

“Again, it’s about what goes on within our four walls,” Demetriou said.

“That’s the beauty of this week, it’s all been about business and what we need to control.”

The coach was also unwilling to hit back at Mansour, who claimed on The Bye Round podcast this week that Demetriou had been a poor communicator during his time on the wing at Souths.

“I’ll let Josh be Josh, and I’ll be me,” Demetriou said.

“That’s one thing I learnt from last year that I’ll continue to turn up here and be me. That’s all I’m worried about.”

But on one point Demetriou was unequivocal as the side prepared to begin turning their season around.

“We’re not far off,” he said.

“At the end of the day, we led 20-12 against Manly and had a nine-minute period that we needed to address and showed some good signs defensively and improvements against the Broncos.

“It’s round three, we’re not going to be the team that we’re going to be at the back end of the year now.

“We’ve had a tough start but we’re making improvements.”