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BRONCOS 28, RABBITOHS 18
Adam Reynolds left the field for the Brisbane Broncos late in the contest against the South Sydney Rabbitohs.Credit: Scott Davis/NRL Photos
KEY POINTS
REYNOLDS NEEDS A FEW WEEKS OFF: “He’s a fossil”, Reece Walsh joked of his captain after full-time. A very, very important fossil, who has been carrying a knee injury that is still an issue after an 11-day turnaround from Las Vegas. Reynolds came off with 10 minutes to play and didn’t want to. But Brisbane don’t need him busting a gut in the opening rounds. Reece Walsh, Ezra Mam, their powerhouse props and strike centres can get them through. Reynolds is off for scans in the morning and by the end of the night, the club was growing confident an ACL could be ruled out. Still, wrap him in cotton wool and get him right.
It was another unhappy night for Latrell Mitchell and the Rabbitohs.Credit: Getty
JD WILL NEED A LIE DOWN: Thirteen errors. Multiple charge downs. Penalties for blatantly flouting the downtown rule. Kicks into their own players. Kicks out on the full. Oh and a scrum lost with the feed. You name a coach killing play, the Bunnies did their best to pull it off. The fact they were in the game with 10 minutes to play is testament to their grit and grind. But they were never winning this with the pressure they piled on themselves. Now they’re 0-2 and staring down a massive clash with arch-rivals the Roosters next week.
MURRAY IS A MIDDLE: Souths looked a shadow of the side they can be for so much of this contest. The only time they did look the goods was straightening up through the middle with Siliva Havili after halftime. The Bunnies don’t have speed on the edges, and won’t even when Jack Wighton returns as a brute out wide. Cameron Murray’s leg speed through the middle is the key to their attack, and even with Jai Arrow needing to be replaced out on the right edge, it can’t be their captain who does it. Keep Murray in the middle and manufacture an edge back-rower if need be. Because Cody Walker, Lachlan Ilias and Latrell Mitchell all struggle to get any front-foot ball without Murray punching away at lock.
WHAT THEY SAID
RABBITOHS COACH JASON DEMETRIOU: “We’re just shooting ourselves in the foot… it was a horror show of just really little things that kept putting pressure on us. Bottle that effort and desire and tidy up some of that stuff and we’ll see how good this team is. I was really pleased with our tryline defence, we had to do a hell of a lot of it… We just asked ourselves to do too much defending. They’re just schoolboy errors. We’re not going to beat anyone with [a] 56% completion [rate]“.
BRONCOS CAPTAIN ADAM REYNOLDS: “I just stirred up what was already there. It’s pretty sore. It felt OK during the game, I felt it a little bit before half-time and thought I’d be right to get back out there and then I hurt it in that tackle. Plan is to get a scan in the morning. It’s just a knee injury, it’s nothing too serious. It’s along those lines (of a medial ligament injury).“