{"id":336146,"date":"2023-10-04T02:12:35","date_gmt":"2023-10-04T02:12:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=336146"},"modified":"2023-10-04T05:03:31","modified_gmt":"2023-10-04T05:03:31","slug":"bunnies-shake-up-coaching-staff-after-burgess-drama","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=336146","title":{"rendered":"Bunnies shake up coaching staff after Burgess drama"},"content":{"rendered":"

S\ufeffouth Sydney<\/a> has extended the contract of Jason Demetriou<\/a> and announced an overhaul of his coaching department.<\/p>\n

The Bunnies on Wednesday revealed a two-year extension for Demetriou, which ties him to the role until the end of 2026, as well as a new two-year deal for Dragons legend Ben Hornby.<\/p>\n

Hornby has agreed \ufeffto be full-time assistant coach of the team until the end of 2025, but is the only designated assistant to Demetriou named in the new structure.<\/p>\n

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Joe O'Callaghan is the other assistant to Demetriou, but will juggle those duties while also coaching the club's NSW Cup team.<\/p>\n

The club statement also says Demetriou "will have a more hands-on coaching role from 2024 onwards, taking control\u00a0 of the team's defence\ufeff".<\/p>\n

The shake-up comes after former assistant coaches Sam Burgess<\/a> and John Morris\ufeff left the club in acrimonious circumstances in what was a bizarre end to the Rabbitohs' season.<\/p>\n

\"SYDNEY,<\/p>\n

Bunnies legend Burgess was suddenly punted from the job in August<\/a> after media reports claimed he and Morris had spoken out against Demetriou's favourable treatment of star players Latrell Mitchell and Cody Walker<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Morris was allowed to remain in the role, but has now left the burrow to join Benji Marshall's staff at Wests Tigers.<\/p>\n

South Sydney's season ended in turmoil and the team missed NRL finals as rumours about Demetriou's future began to swirl, including speculation Wayne Bennett could return to retake the job.<\/p>\n

\ufeffNevertheless the club has shown faith in Demetriou with a new deal.<\/p>\n

"\ufeffWe have identified the areas in which we can improve to return the club to its goal of being a top-four team every year," club CEO Blake Solly said in a statement.<\/p>\n

\"Rabbitohs<\/p>\n

"We worked with Shane McCurry and spoke extensively to players, coaches, staff and our board on what we needed to improve in 2024.\u00a0<\/p>\n

"We have already taken some steps towards rectifying the key areas that have been identified as capable of improvement. We will continue to make the required changes to return this club to where it belongs. We're confident that we can return to the right end of the ladder in 2024.\u00a0<\/p>\n

"We were not looking for excuses, we were looking at solutions, and we'll continue to implement changes prior to\u00a0 players returning for training in November.\u00a0<\/p>\n

"We know a ninth-place finish is not what is expected of our club. Our members and supporters expect more, our\u00a0partners expect more, and we expect more of ourselves."<\/p>\n

In other coaching department changes, club legend John Sutton has become a full-time development coach, while head of performance Andrew Croll has extended his contract and agreed to cease working with Queensland's State of Origin team during the season.\ufeff<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

S\ufeffouth Sydney has extended the contract of Jason Demetriou and announced an overhaul of his coaching department. The Bunnies on Wednesday revealed a two-year extension […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":336148,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/336146"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=336146"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/336146\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":336150,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/336146\/revisions\/336150"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/336148"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=336146"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=336146"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=336146"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}