6th May 2026
Ambushed in the Heat
After such a good win the week before, it was so disappointing to see the team once again let in early points in the hot sunny afternoon, in similar fashion to how they started in Perth in similar conditions. What was then pleasing to see was how the team faught their way back into the contest and be in the lead with two minutes to go. But another dropped ball cost us the match, as we allowed 5 tries soon after errors. The match was our highest ever losing score, the second highest in NRL premiership history. The point a minute game was our second highest premiership scoring aggregate. We still sit in the Top 4, but only just. Still 9 more wins to make the finals. Now back to Homebush to play a inform SHarks outfit.
Johnston and Walker doubles/B>
In a high scoring encounter it was our left edge who scored all of our 7 tries. Johnston scored another career double, his 60th time he has scored 2 or more tries in a game, and his 11th for the season and 221st for his career. Again on the end of slick backline play. Johnston became the first person to score a try in each game for 8 rounds of football ever. While Cody Walker also scored a double, his 17th time he has scored 2 or more tries in a game. He has now surpassed Harold Horder to move into 5th on the all time South Sydney premiership try scoring list, just 1 behind Ian Moir.
Mitchell 100 points
Latrell Mitchell has raced up to lead the NRL point scorers list with his try scoring and goal kicking ability. In recent weeks he has scored 20, 14, 22, 12 and 14 points to be the dominate point scorer in every game. He now has 11 tries for season. He passed 200 career goals and sits 5th on the Rabbitohs all time premiership goal scoring list. He has also moved up into 6th on the all time Rabbitohs premiership points scoring list. He also equaled the fastest number of games to reach 100 premiership points in a season. His powerful beast mode running at centre has been a feature of 2026.
SG Ball players step up to U21s
With the junior season over we have a number of U19 players being called up into U21s this week. Dayne Jennings, Cody Hill and Fui return after playing a few games last year, with Lavakeiko, Cresswell and Lyons named on the extended bench. We expect Tauaa to join the group once he recovers from injury.
Too Many Score blowouts
The 2026 season is becaoming one of the highest game aggregate seasons on record. We have season the average score aggregates jump by over 6 points a game, with games now resembling the old NYC competition. The NRL has swung the pendulum too far towards attack with the 6 again rule change. Good defence is as much a part of the game of rugby league as is good attack. Something will have to change as the key metric of "ball in play" has dropped on the back of too many tries being scored. It is not entertaining watching 80 point games, and while these games are relativily even, we have not arrived towards to end of the season where one sided blow outs usually occur.
Round 9 - Stat Attack
Statistically it was a poor game. Completions dropped to 73% from 81% last week. Errors dropped to 13 from 9 last week. We gave away 6 penalties and 2 6-again calls from 13 last week. Souths Effective 1st tackle dropped to a average level of 30.2m from 28.9m last week. Our missed tackles improved to a poor level of 30 from 39 last week. Opposition offloads dropped to 10 from 8 last week.
Looking at our left side defence - Johnston-Mitchell-Walker-Murray/Duncan (1-2-2-2) was steady at 7 again this week. On the right side Graham/GrahamTaufa-Wighton/Duncan/Graham-Humphreys-Duncan/Aitken (0-2-5-2) improved to 9 from 14 last week. Ruck defence Tatola/Koloamatangi-Garlick/Mamouzelos-Keppie/Hubner-Koloamatangi/Murray (2-3-7-1) improved to 13 from 16 missed tackles last week.
Our go forward dropped to 1416m from 2100m last week. With our props go forward dropped to a very poor level of 307m compared to 474m last week. Koloamatangi and Mitchell made 10+m per run. Koloamatangi, Aitken, Dufty, Mitchell, Graham and Johnston made 100+m in the match. Dufty made 200+m in the match. Defensively Murray was our best in the tackling raking up 36 tackles. Koloamatangi, GRaham-Taufa and Wighton one didn't miss a tackle.
none
Rd07 St Geo-Ill StAu W 30-12 Rd08 Melbourne MRSt W 48-6 Rd09 Newcastle NISC L 38-42
Rd07 BYE Rd08 Nth Qld NQSt L 34-46 Rd09 West-Tig Ende W 52-10
2023 Rd01 Ende W 27-18 12,757 T.Smith 2023 Rd23 PrSt L 16-26 45,814 T.Smith 2024 Rd06 StAu L 22-34 12,207 A.Klein 2024 Rd22 Ende L 6-20 12,753 L.Kennedy 2025 Rd03 Ende L 12-27 14,230 G.Sutton 2025 Rd21 Gosf L 12-14 13,896 B.Sharpe
First Grade Pe 6A SB OR SO
never
M W D L : PeW PeD PeL PeF PeA : 6AW 6AD 6AL 6AF 6AA : SB OR SO
v Cronulla
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