Road to the Grand Final - Rabbitohs:
https://www.nrl.com/news/2021/10/03/road-to-the-grand-final-rabbitohs/
How the Rabbitohs win the 2021 Grand Final:
https://www.nrl.com/tv/shows/game-plan/2021/how-the-rabbitohs-win-the-2021-grand-final/
GF LIVE - Disaster averted for NRL in ‘great relief’, star ‘pinching himself’ after ‘crazy’ rise:
https://www.foxsports.com.au/nrl/nr...y/news-story/94e7766e989d8071c81419df5de3d26d
Peter Sterling says South Sydney kicking duties will reveal Adam Reynolds' true health status:
https://wwos.nine.com.au/nrl/nrl-gr...abbitohs/5046234e-eb59-406c-93fb-6b59413cb196
From the man himself, Wayne Bennett,
From movie tough guys to journeymen, team key to Souths’ success
MOST people know Russell Crowe as a movie star, a tough guy who fights lions and bank robbers, taking home Academy Awards. I know him for his passion for his footy club, the South Sydney Rabbitohs. And I love it. I love the way he’s always wanting the club to be better on and off the field.
There’s nothing that goes on here he doesn’t know about, and he has a great sense of the 113-year history of this foundation club. The man known as “Rusty” gives me a few suggestions about coaching, but they’re only suggestions and life rolls on. He’s passionate about loyalty to the players, and loves to see the kids brought up in the South Sydney area make first grade, and then play out their careers at Redfern.
That’s why, win or lose, he’s going to hurt when our halfback and captain Adam Reynolds walks off tonight and heads north to the Broncos. No one wanted Adam to go. But there’s salary caps and hardcore business decisions to make at all the great sporting organisations, and for all the great sportspeople.
When I came to Souths three years ago, then-boss Shane Richardson, said “Wayne, we just want you to coach” and, I’ve gotta say, that’s all I’ve done here. Coaching is all I do, and everything I do.
I coach Cody Walker and Alex Johnston — and don’t the players love him. Johnston, Mark Nicholls, Damien Cook, Cameron Murray (right) — a really good core of players. Sam Burgess. Such a dynamic person. John Sutton, he was different but owned the changerooms, and I didn’t have much to do with “GI” (Greg Inglis) because, while he retired, we made sure his influence remained. As a group, they needed a change and the change was me.
I made Reynolds captain because I’d coached against him and admired his coolness.
Again, he was South Sydney. He played in all the good local junior sides. “Hey Adam, what high school did you go to?”
Matraville High.
He played in an Under-20s grand final. And in SG Ball, he was a year younger than everyone but his coach, Craig Coleman, still made him captain.
So calm and so much fun. I remember looking at him in the early days and thinking, ”despite all you’ve achieved, still no one truly knows how good you are”.
Same with Walker. Cody’s been in the area a long time, and the locals always said he was like one of the Ellas, the fourth Ella brother. I remember trying to get him to Brisbane. He was born with magic hands and movement. A beautiful pass. Vision. Can play great structure and can play off the top of his head. Doesn’t matter.
To me, Walker epitomises South Sydney: Indigenous, the flair, he loves the game — he’d play for nothing, that bloke.
I know I coached “The King”, Wally Lewis, but if I had to pick the best five-eighth I’ve coached, I’d find it very hard not to pick Walker.
He has two kids and Adam has four. They remind me of how I was brought up in the bush, where your father played rugby league on Sundays and they’d all have a drink on the Friday night. Come straight from work to training, and then the pub to tell their tall tales and laugh a lot while the kids played touch out the back in the dark. Workingclass Australia. Cook’s been to a number of clubs and played goodness knows how many positions, but he’s the hooker, no question. He’s a responsible guy, Damien, wellmannered and well groomed. I remember seeing a group of them at the Dally Ms the other night and being so proud. Image is important to Russell, and it’s important to me. Nicholls, our front-rower, epitomises what makes teams. Unsung hero. Mark had been to a lot of clubs, too, and when he turned up at Souths, I sort of raised an eyebrow and said to Sam Burgess, “who’s that?” Sam said, ”Don’t worry about the bald bloke, coach, he can play”.
We made him stand-in captain in the last competition round and the players loved it. They think the world of him. He’s not a journeyman anymore. He’s found a home.
You need people like Nicholls to make football teams, and South Sydney gets it.
People like Latrell Mitchell. He is South Sydney. You need players happy to be here and you’re happy to have them, not just in your team but in your life.
