South Sydney have firmed as premiership favourites, claiming a comfortable 28-12 win over the Melbourne Storm at Magic Round.
Any doubts the Rabbitohs may be pretenders rather than contenders have been answered over the past five weeks with wins over the Bulldogs, Dolphins, Panthers, Broncos and now Storm.
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The most impressive part is that the Rabbitohs have been so dominant in the games, with only the Panthers game going down to the wire.
Fox League’s Cooper Cronk labelled the club “competition favourites right now”.
“What South Sydney have done in their five-match winning streak has been outstanding,” Cronk said.
“They’ve been able to dominate teams on the scoreboard, they’ve been able to hold in contests, they’ve been able to fight back but defensively, so strong.
“The goal line defence and the ability to continually repel the Melbourne Storm — remember, it was four line breaks to nil, that’s how good South Sydney defended.”
But on the other side of the ledger, the Storm’s invincible aura is finally starting to dissolve after 20 years on top.
While the Storm were the last team to beat the Rabbitohs back in round 5, and sit equal second with seven other teams, the loss saw the heavyweights go 5-4 over the opening 10 rounds.
With seven minutes left and the Rabbitohs comfortably ahead, the cameras caught a pretty despondent coach Craig Bellamy in the coach’s box.
Bellamy laughed off suggestions during the week that he’d chase Wayne Bennett’s 900-game record he reached in the Dolphins win over the Sharks, suggesting that the Storm may need a replacement as early as next year.
But that he still hadn’t made a decision.
“I won’t be going for 900, I’m pretty sure about that. I’ll probably make a decision in the next week or two, hopefully we can get that done,” he said.
“It has taken a while, there’s been a few twists and turns. I’ll just trust my gut. I always encourage other people to do that when you’ve got to make a decision, a big decision or a little decision.”
It comes after he suggested before the season began that it was “time for the club to have a new coach”.
Cronk said that he wasn’t sure if Bellamy was going to walk away.
“I know he’s still got the connection to the playing group and connection to the football club but things may have changed a little bit because he’s still coaching at a very high level,” he said.
“He’s got a great relationship with his staff and players so obviously he’s umming and ahhing.”
Cronk said the decision for the likes of the ageless coaches like Wayne Bennett and Bellamy is if they don’t have rugby league anymore, “what do they do?”
He added: “I’ve said for the past three years, I’d like to see Craig retire and enjoy the finer things in life but he doesn’t listen to me.”
A picture of Queensland coach Billy Slater, who has been suggested as a possible replacement for Bellamy despite denials he’d be interested in the role, in the change rooms after the match also got tongues wagging.
Yvonne Sampson said it was an “incredible visual”.
Bellamy said there were communication breakdowns through the game where the Storm looked like “we didn’t know each other”.
But the Storm performance was raked over the coals by the Fox League experts.
Mal Meninga said it was pretty comfortable win and the Storm didn’t put the Rabbitohs under too much pressure.
“The Storm’s second half was very clunky,” Meninga said. “A lot of errors, I think they only completed 69 per cent. So they didn’t really threaten the Rabbitohs defence at all down their end.”
Cronk did point out the Storm made nearly 100 more tackles but said: “No forward on the Melbourne Storm was really truly dominant, where you could name five or six from South Sydney.
“The Melbourne Storm, they tried, they weren’t at their clinical best. But I just thought South Sydney were that good.”
Greg Alexander said it was a good first half but that the Storm missed their opportunities to stamp their authority on the match.
“They had plenty of ball down in Souths’ 20 and just couldn’t make anything count,” he said.
“I thought their execution was poor.
“Melbourne just off their game slightly when they had a chance and didn’t capitalise on field position. Souths did.”
