Just when you thought it couldn’t get much worse for South Sydney, the club’s season from hill hit a new low on Thursday night.
While it was always going to be hard for the Rabbitohs against the three-time defending premiers the Penrith Panthers just two days after head coach Jason Demetriou was sacked during the week, the club has been rocked by a fresh injury crisis out of the 42-12 thumping.
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In a way, a strong start made the eventual crushing loss even worse as the Rabbitohs ran out to a 12-0 lead after 10 minutes.
But from there it was all downhill.
Gray, who has impressed in his short NRL career so far suffered a possible syndesmosis injury when he was caught in a hip drop tackle from Izack Tago, which gave the Rabbitohs the man advantage for their opening two tries.
While he battled away on the field, he didn’t make it past half time and finished the game in a moon boot.
Even more heartbreaking was halfback Dean Hawkins, who suffered a quad injury after kicking off following one of the Panthers tries in the first half.
Post-match, Channel 9 reported Hawkins said he’d “heard a pop” and even though he was wearing a compression bandage on the injured quad, said he hadn’t had a history of quad injuries.
It saw the bizarre scenes of hooker Damien Cook in his 200th game playing fullback for just the second time in his first-grade career and first time since round 26, 2017.
The match ended with a scary scene for representative forward Jai Arrow, who appeared to have suffered a reoccurence of a shoulder injury and was left on the ground after trying to bundle Sunia Turuva into touch.
Fronting the media as the Souths interim coach, Ben Hornby said Arrow said “he’d be fine”.
The rookie coach also liked what he’d seen from his charges, saying the Rabbitohs had shown “effort all day” and “didn’t deserve the scoreline”.
Rabbitohs skipper Cameron Murray said despite the scoreline that there were good moments the club can build off.
However, the Rabbitohs have made unwanted history, having conceded 292 points — the second most points after eight rounds in the NRL era (just two points behind the 2002 Cowboys), sixth most ever and the most ever by a South Sydney side.
The most telling moment of the match came at 24-12 with 18 minutes remaining.
A Cody Walker chip went deep, handing the Panthers a 20m restart.
But a sloppy chase from Souths saw Dylan Edwards start a break before passing to Taylan May to run the remaining 70m and score under the black dot.
NRL legend Cooper Cronk told Fox Sports the Rabbitohs’ effort was “so poor”.
“Poor effort to first chase the kick from Cody Walker. And if you don’t chase it, at least get back onside,” he said.
“Watch all these players – no one pushes through on the right side to chase the kick. Now they want to put in the effort (too late). Edwards gets the ball. Watch (Keaon) Koloamatangi, watch every player running back with their back turned.
“Edwards taps and goes. Cody Walker’s right there. (But) the only person that’s back onside was Jai Arrow.
“Taylan May makes South Sydney look pretty silly with one effort.
“There’s only two reasons why South Sydney would be unable to do that effort. One, they might not be fit enough. Or two, their care factor for their team or their jersey is not where it needs to be.
“Cody Walker just turns and doesn’t even put in an effort. That whole side that put in a half effort and chase is either not fit enough or their care factor for the team and the jersey has taken a backwards step.”
Post-match, Channel 9’s Cameron Smith said while it was improved performance, the South Sydney of 2024 once again reared its ugly head.
“A lot of effort tonight,” Cameron Smith said on Nine.
“But when it mattered, it was all Penrith. They fell back into some bad habits – some soft defence, poor errors and in this competition – particularly when playing against a quality outfit – you just can’t give up those opportunities.”