Jason Demetriou slams ‘horror show’ as Souths ‘shoot ourselves in the foot’
South Sydney coach Jason Demetriou has savaged his side’s second straight loss to start the season after they used every trick in the book to lose.
South Sydney coach Jason Demetriou has branded his side’s 28-18 loss to the Brisbane Broncos at Suncorp Stadium on Thursday night “a horror show”.
Although the Rabbitohs sit among the premiership favourites, the pressure is mounting at the club after a horror 2023 collapse and the side already dropping to 0-2 with matches against the Roosters, Bulldogs, Warriors and Sharks — three of which played in the 2023 playoffs.
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The Rabbitohs finished ninth in 2023, becoming the first team in the NRL era to miss the finals after leading the comp after 11 rounds, winning just four of their final 13 matches.
Stacked with talent across the board, pressure is mounting on Demetriou to take the Rabbitohs back to the promised land with the fact his former mentor and direct predecessor Wayne Bennett is off-contract at the end of the season, which is casting a big shadow over the role.
It’s a fact that would have made Thursday night’s result all the harder to take for 48-year-old as a cavalcade of mistake gave the visitors no chance.
Down 12-0 at halftime, the Rabbitohs had it all going against them, but for several calls, they only had themselves to blame.
Simple errors early in sets, poor passing putting teammates in the firing line, and an unnecessary sin bin for Damien Cook after he crowded Adam Reynolds and pushed him over after a line break played against the Rabbitohs.
They even lost a scrum against the feed.
But when the side were penalised when putting in an attacking kick for having blockers, Fox League commentator Warren Smith said: “A blocker there, the Rabbitohs. That’s just about the full house of mental mistakes they’ve made in this first half.”
Michael Ennis added: “They’ve rolled it all out in the first half for Jason Demetriou. He’ll be absolutely livid at halftime”.
While it was frantic action, the Rabbitohs made nine errors in the first half. Although the Broncos made eight of their own, including several that could have blown out the scoreline in their favour, the visitors didn’t make the Brisbane side pay.
In the second half, the Rabbitohs got back in the match with two quick tries to draw level at 12-all, but another blocker penalty and accidental off-side when Lachlan Ilias kicked the ball into the back of Tallis Duncan were absolute coach killers.
“We’re just shooting ourselves in the foot,” Demetriou said in his press conference.
“Whether it’s not feeding the scrum properly, or first tackle errors, kicking it into our own player, penalties for blocking — it was a horror show of little things that kept putting pressure on ourselves.
“I said to them there, we bottle that effort and desire and tidy up some of that stuff and we see how good this footy team is because I was really pleased with our tryline defence in particular. We were asked to do a hell of a lot of it and it was a big improvement from last week.”
When asked more about why the players were making so many errors, Demetriou said it came down to “concentration”.
“Individuals have got to own their roles. A scrum feed, a first tackle error, we played without Cooky for 10 minutes before halftime and our defensive resolve during that time was outstanding,” Demetriou said.
“It allowed us to come out with some momentum and get to 12-all and started looking like the footy team we want to be but we just didn’t give ourselves a chance from that point on.
“To be under 50 per cent completion from that point on, we just asked ourselves to do too much defending.”
Demetriou said it was “schoolboy errors” that were killing the Rabbitohs and that when they get it right, they can be a good football team.
“We’re not going to beat anyone with 56 per cent completions — we’ve got to take ownership of that,” Demetriou said.
The Rabbitohs finished the game with 63 per cent completions, or 24 from 38 sets, while the Broncos were only marginally better at 72 per cent, or 31 from 43.
The Broncos were also buoyed by a two-try stunner from fullback Reece Walsh, who starred in a battle of the fullbacks against Latrell Mitchell.
While Mitchell scored just before full-time, Walsh had already done the damage in a brilliant individual performance.
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