After the prime minister had taken his leave and an exhausted, exhilarated Jai Arrow had hugged his last well-wisher, the Rabbitohs team bus sat idling in the bowels of Allianz Stadium on Friday night.
Brandon Smith was completing one last literal sweep of the dressing room and keeping his teammates waiting. Apparently, he has done it after every game this season.
A little thing in the scheme of things. Which has always been the point of the “sweep the sheds″ ideology made famous by the all-conquering All Blacks under former coach Steve Hansen.
No one is too big, no job is too small.
Big – in the figurative sense – is the best word for Souths’ glittering cardinal and myrtle roster. Unfortunately, busted has been the operative term for the Bunnies for the past three seasons, too.
But Wayne Bennett, himself one of the biggest figures in rugby league history, has a potentially radioactive roster suddenly on the boil right in time for the finals.
As just one example, Smith is a Rabbitoh some coaches will love, others loathe. Some will back themselves to save, others give a wide berth. The Kiwi rake’s off-field dramas are as well-documented as his infectious, charismatic personality.
And even as he sweeps up South Sydney’s sheds after every game, his ongoing court case – where he will plead not guilty to a drug supply charge – is due for mention in week two of the finals.
Smith is no angel, and doesn’t pretend to be. At his best, he is a force all on his own around the ruck. Further wide to the right, David Fifita is a family sized fridge capable of hitting 35km/h while taking four defenders along for the ride.
But the Titans are contributing about $500,000 of his wages over the next two seasons, all too aware of the enigmatic back-rower’s patchy form and injury struggles.
Friday night’s elimination final against Newcastle will be Fifita’s first post-season game in almost 1800 days, dating back to 2021, an incredible record for a man of his undoubted talent and potential.
On the Rabbitohs’ left edge, Latrell Mitchell is just as fearsome, even more skilful and the single most magnetic, explosive player in the game.
Where the Roosters are scrambling to cover for Sam Walker, the Panthers sweat on Isaah Yeo and you wonder about the Warriors’ defensive wobbles, South Sydney – after another year of significant injuries – are suddenly threatening to find rare fitness and form.
Along with Mitchell, Fifita and Smith, you can add occasionally cranky playmaking genius Cody Walker to the Bunnies’ eclectic mix.
Reborn running fullback Matt Dufty rubbed plenty the wrong way during his first six years in the NRL. But thrown a $1200-a-week lifeline by Bennett, with the lure of $3000 a game in match payments, he’s been one of the stories of the season.
In part, so has Jye Gray, the diminutive No.1 who made way for Dufty, without fuss or fanfare, and played off the bench and on the wing before earning a recall at fullback for the 50-20 Roosters thrashing.
Bennett’s ability to coach each man on their merits across his 50-plus years in the game is legendary, and is enduring as well as ever in what has been an especially emotional season for his players.
This Rabbitohs side, with headline grabbers such as Mitchell, Walker, Fifita and Smith, bears more than a striking resemblance to the champion Broncos outfits Bennett led in the 1990s – when names such as Langer, Sailor, Walters and Tallis were larger than life in a one-team, though hardly one-horse town.
For every one of Bennett’s big names, there is always room and necessity for an honest tradesman – a Lachlan Hubner, Ashton Ward, Adam Elliott or Euan Aitken.
The double-edged irony of this Souths season is that Elliott has fought back from what many feared was a career-ending ankle injury to now be fit for the finals.
Aitken, whose 201 games since last playing finals is the NRL’s longest post-season drought, is nursing a shoulder injury that threatens to extend that cruel absence.
Bennett, meanwhile, had more than one staff member urging him to nurse Mitchell through to the finals as well once the Roosters were put to bed last Friday night.
Why risk your greatest asset when Mitchell already had an hour’s worth of running in his legs? What more could be gained coach or, more importantly, what could Latrell lose, if the brutal shot that pulverised Toby Rodwell had landed just two inches higher?
“I took a risk; I could have played him less time,” Bennett explained afterwards.
“A few people were trying to tell me on the bench to get him off. But he was enjoying himself and wasn’t under stress out there in that second half.
“He had that bit of a swagger that he has back, and he did some really good things.”
Sometimes those little things go a fair way.
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