South Sydney’s stars want to bury 2018’s preliminary final pain
Twelve months after falling short at the same hurdle, the nightmares of the past are fuelling South Sydney ahead of Friday’s preliminary final showdown.
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Cody Walker could only stand and stare.
An emotional Damien Cook dropped his head into his hands. And Adam Reynolds could do little else but to find a consoling shoulder to lean on.
These are the images from 12-months ago that the Rabbitohs will take with them into their must-win preliminary final against Canberra at GIO Stadium tonight.
The sick feeling of losing the exact same game last September, has stayed with the boys from Redfern ever since.
Friday night is all about erasing those memories.
Because so many past players will tell you, the pain and frustration of losing the preliminary final, can actually feel worse than losing the grand final.
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There's always a small sense of pride that, "at least we got to the grand final."
But losing a preliminary final, for an NRL player, can often feel like everything achieved that season, was for nothing.
That's the case for the Rabbitohs - who have been waiting 12-months for this moment.
A year ago, the Anthony Seibold-coached Rabbitohs were beaten in the grand final qualifier against eventual premiers the Sydney Roosters 12-4.
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The scoreline in the history books reads like the contest was close.
"But they (Roosters) were probably in control for a lot of it,'' Cook said ahead of the clash with the Raiders.
"We really missed an opportunity. We went in with a game plan and the Roosters just picked us off.
"For me that loss lingered - and I know for a lot of the boys it did too.
"This doesn't surprise me where we are (preliminary final), because I knew the team we had here and I knew how far we went last year and we felt like we missed an opportunity.
"I feel like a lot of us will take the experience of last year's prelim loss against the Roosters into this game (against Canberra) and we don't want to be feeling like that again.
Asked why this side under the guidance of Wayne Bennett can do to Canberra what they failed to do against the Roosters in the 2018 preliminary final, Cook said: "I feel like this year, we're attacking both sides of the field, we're attacking through the middle, we've got that other A,B and C options to go if our game plan isn't working.
"So we're last year, we were probably a bit one dimensional. That's the improvement we've made this year.''
Such was the torment of South Sydney's spluttering performance against the Roosters last year, Walker said the loss was the overriding reason he spent his break counting the days until the 2019 pre-season.
"Obviously the way you finish every season hurts that a little bit more - especially in a prelim,'' Walker said.
"You can't get wait to get back to pre-season to do all the hard work so you're back in that position again to try and go one better.
"That was our motivating factor leading into last year. I wanted to come back and be fit and be ready to go for a big year.
"The disappointment after the game was enough to drive me through this season to be back at this point.''
For both Cook and Walker, they know that if they are to overcome the odds - and heal the wound of last year - they will need a vast improvement in one main area.
"We haven't defended (well) for a number of weeks now and if we want to be serious about this premiership, defence is everything,'' Cook said.
"We scored 34 points (against Manly) and didn't play our best footy - but we just didn't defend right.
"We gave them too much momentum and we probably just tightened up a bit.
"We've just got to learn from (Manly) game and get our defence right, knowing we've got points in the back end.
"We can't give them (Raiders) good field position because they've got too many point scorers.''
Originally published as South Sydney’s stars want to bury 2018’s preliminary final pain