Thats a very talented bunch. On paper.....and I stress on paper, that's undoubtedly a top 4 team.
How do you feel about NRL standard depth, which is so important, if injuries hit? I think you will struggle due to your reliance on idividuals, rather than a team like Melbourne or Saints, who play a style that relies on structures and roles. Injuries & rep absences can be covered by avergae players who now exactly what their role is.
If you have a good year injury wise, where do you see the weaknesses in your play with that 17? For me, its the same as above. Lack of discipline with the ball & lack of commitment to do the dirty work. The 1%ers that teams who win comps do. A reliance on individual brilliance.
I'm not trolling here, just interested to know. As a Saints man, and as I've said before, your roster just reminds me in so many ways of ours in 2004, 05 & 06. WE all know what happened with that galaxy of stars. We looked good at times and at times were downright brilliant, but we lacked a hard arsed approach to our footy and all the talent in the world couldn't get us into a GF against more disciplined teams.
Your thoughts?
I think most of your points are quite reasonable. I think the Bunnies have a bit of a problem in terms of depth, especially in the halves.
There are some decent kids and second-tier players to cover the backs, and even the forwards barring an injury crisis like 2010's.
You just can't replace a player like Luke, same as a hooker like Smith, Farah or even Ennis. You take him out and the whole team suffers quite a bit.
But in the halves, the pool is pretty shallow. You just can't move Luke from hooker, as has been done in the past ... that's a double blow. Inglis and maybe Mundine arguably give the Bunnies more depth for 5/8 than they had in 2010, but the only possible replacement for Sandow at half would be an untested kid - Reynolds.
As for the discipline and one-percent'ers comment, I think winning and losing are both habitual. Souths has to learn to win and make a habit of doing it, including in those tight games.
While teams like the Bulldogs and Roosters have gone from cellar to near the top in recent years with coaching changes, I think Souths were always going to be less capable of such a dramatic flare-up. They need to build something. It's going to take committed individuals to do that.
The good news is I think the Rabbitohs are very much working in the right direction. Guys like Luke, Burgess, Stuart, Lowe, Merritt and even Roy (despite his two past tough years) are competitors and I think they are capable of dragging up those around them, either through passion or by the quiet and professional way they go about their role.
Guys like Sutton, Sandow and Taylor need to learn from these guys and step up a gear - all are talented (yes, even Sandow, for the haters) but need more consistency and fewer brainfarts that have a way of deflating their teammates.
I'm hoping Inglis will definitely be more a part of the former group than the latter ... he's still young and not obviously a "leader". Fingers crossed.
Finally there's the coach. I think Lang is a good and fine coach, but I'm hoping the next coach will be something of a "missing piece" for the Bunnies. It's hard to view Lang as a game-changer (something the Bunnies need) and it's impossible to ignore the fact that he's A LOT closer to the end than the beginning of his coaching career.
Rusty is very passionate. Hopefully he can help attract the "special" coach he clearly wants and then let's him get on with the job.
