The South Sydney Rabbitohs will play 16 premiership games in Sydney and its surrounds next year in a welcome return to matches closer to their home base in 2024, as was revealed when the NRL announced the 2024 Telstra Premiership Draw today.
www.rabbitohs.com.au
Ooooooo yeaaaaaaaa!!!!!! I'm away on holiday so have been out doing stuff all day but have been itching to get back to the motel all arvo to come and check our draw. Gotta say, at first glance, I'm liking what I see. I'll still spend a lot of time this evening and over the next few days fully analysing everything, but my initial reaction is that I like it!
Look, we're the South Sydney Rabbitohs, one of the heavyweights and one of the biggest clubs in the game. That means we're basically never going to have an 'easy' draw because we have to play all the other big teams. I know we play a lot of teams that finished in the top eight this year twice so that probably makes it look tougher but honestly, I don't think we can read too much into that. Foz League reads into that a lot for their ratings which is why we've been rated the hardest. But you know what, it shouldn't matter to us. You want to be the best? Beat the best. Enough with the excuses and blaming a tougher draw. It's a challenge and one we need to rise to.
The other thing we need to remember is that we didn't make the Finals in 2023 so everything looks tougher. We're going to be better in 2024 you would think. Well, you would hope, so it's pretty hard to get a read on.
Most other aspects of our draw are fantastic! Basically, the best you could ask for for one of the bigger Sydney clubs and it's certainly one of the better draws we've had in the past few years. The biggest thing is barely leaving NSW compared to recent Seasons. That's friggin huge and I am absolutely stoked about it. Not only for the fans in Sydney, but for the players. Much, much less travel can only be a good thing. I think the amount of travel we had to do in 2023 was a contributing factor to our poor Season so having just 16 out of 24 Regular Season matches outside of Sydney is just massive.
Having a bye a bit earlier in the year is a big plus too, as is having them clustered into the mid part of the Season. That was another reason for the slide this year too I think, especially not having a bye until Round 16 or whatever it was, the boys were so fatigued. Good to get a rest a little earlier this time around. The opportunity cost of that though is that we don't get the bye late in the Season. That is a big negative in 2024's draw. If we want to win the comp, we have to play 13-14 games in a row with no break which is a tough ask. Can be done if we're in a position to manage it and rest players though.
Aside from that, another negative is that we only play the Dogs once. They're one of our biggest rivals and we're two of the most well-supported clubs in the game. To play them just once is a shame, when was the last time that happened??
Just the one 5-day-turnaround is fantastic, as is having lots of Saturday games. Would have been nice to have more Sunday games but it is what it is.
The Origin period is relatively kind to us too so gotta be happy with that. Of course, it depends how we manage it, but on paper it looks okay.
All in all, I'm pretty happy with it after the initial first look. It's really exciting to be honest! I'm sure I'll have more comments and thoughts the more I look at it but that's all my thoughts for now.
