NRL 2020: Shane Richardson attack fuels South Sydney-Melbourne grudge match
Shane Richardson may have left the building at South Sydney but his attack on Melbourne’s go-slow wrestling tactics from last year won’t be forgotten come Friday night.
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Shane Richardson has left the building at South Sydney.
But the smoking gun he left behind following his attack on Melbourne’s go-slow wrestling tactics last year won’t be forgotten come Friday night.
Richardson came out in The Daily Telegraph last August and called for a fan poll to decide if wrestling tactics should be booted out of the NRL following Souths’ loss to the Storm.
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Coincidently, it was ultimately on the back of a fan survey that Peter V’landys pushed for the one ref system to be introduced.
Rubbing even more salt into old wounds, the new six-to-go rule was the brainchild of Wayne Bennett, designed to go directly with the one ref change.
Bennett and Ricky Stuart were the only coaches to publicly support V’landys’ push for one ref during the shutdown.
But Bennett also did it on the proviso it came with the six-to-go call that was used in the 2012 All Stars match.
While Bennett was being blamed prior to the comp’s return for influencing the controversial change because it would advantage a player like Damien Cook, after just one weekend many are now saying this is the most positive thing to happen to the game this century.
Craig Bellamy and the Storm might not agree after the way the Raiders put them to the sword last Saturday night.
The end result is that it is going to set the stage for a huge return grudge match this Friday night in Melbourne.
There is going to be extra fuel given the fact the Storm struggled to adjust to the new pace, with Bellamy labelling their performance embarrassing.
Not that Souths aren’t without issues.
The elephant in the room as far as the Bunnies are concerned is how Bennett is going to handle discussion about the form of arguably his team’s best player, and we are not talking Latrell Mitchell this time.
It was clear to everyone who watched the loss to the Roosters that Cameron Murray is being wasted on the edge. And this new and faster version of NRL would make Murray even more valuable in the middle.
When Bennett made the decision to move him this year it was as much about looking after Murray’s long-term health by reducing Murray’s workload, as filling the gap left by John Sutton.
But the Rabbitohs are really missing his energy and speed in the middle and their forwards were no match for the Roosters.
It only mounts more pressure on Bennett to move Murray back to take on a Storm pack that will be fired up as much for what happened last year in Gosford as what they dished up against the Raiders.
There is also no sugar-coating Mitchell’s performance, even though his desire to get more involved was vastly improved.
Latrell set up a nice try with a double-pump ball for Murray and pulled off a terrific try saving tackle on Luke Keary.
But he also came up with some poor positional play and crucial errors that came through both fatigue and lack of discipline, and the faster football will make it even tougher for him to handle the extra workload at fullback given his current fitness levels.
Bennett was again not happy with the line of questioning about Mitchell’s performance post match but the conversation won’t go away this week, even though there is little chance Bennett will switch him back to the centres.
Meanwhile, the Rabbitohs will still be without the suspended Cody Walker but Bennett would have to be tempted to rush James Roberts back to give the Rabbitohs some extra strike.