{"id":378327,"date":"2024-03-21T21:20:55","date_gmt":"2024-03-21T22:20:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=378327"},"modified":"2024-03-22T00:03:45","modified_gmt":"2024-03-22T00:03:45","slug":"joey-souths-scapegoats-pay-price-for-teammates","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=378327","title":{"rendered":"Joey: Souths scapegoats pay price for teammates"},"content":{"rendered":"

South Sydney<\/a>'s spine has been torn to pieces at the selection table this week, but the heat has been placed elsewhere by league legend Andrew Johns<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Rabbitohs coach Jason Demetriou reacted to consecutive losses by axing young halfback Lachlan Ilias<\/a>, and benching veteran hooker Damien Cook<\/a> ahead of Friday night's blockbuster against the Roosters.<\/p>\n

The players who have survived the round three spine cull are five-eighth Cody Walker and fullback Latrell Mitchell.<\/p>\n

EXCLUSIVE:<\/strong> How Olympic dream almost killed Aussie<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

\ufeffEXCLUSIVE:<\/strong> Secret Roosters recruit that gave Teddy new life<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\ufeffREAD MORE:<\/strong> Panthers blast Broncos off park in grand final rematch<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

\ufeffDemetriou refused to divulge his reasoning when quizzed about the changes at Thursday's press conference.<\/p>\n

But the Bunnies have lost to the Sea Eagles and the Broncos to start season 2024, after falling off a cliff in the second half of last season to miss finals in a stunning fall from grace.<\/p>\n

\"South<\/p>\n

State of Origin hooker Cook will start on the bench on Friday, replaced in the starting side by Siliva Havili.<\/p>\n

While Johns concedes the rake's form hasn't been great to start the year, he believes it is actually the team's big men who deserve to face scrutiny.<\/p>\n

"\ufeff(Cook's) form has been down, but also it's a by-product of his forwards not dominating at the ruck," Johns told Wide World of Sports' Immortal Behaviour<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n

Watch the 2024 NRL premiership live and free on Nine and <\/strong><\/em>9Now<\/strong><\/em><\/a>.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

"\ufeffIt might give a bit of a kick in the backside for Cooky. Bring him on after 25, 30 minutes and run Cooky, run.<\/p>\n

"\ufeffThere was a missed tackle by Cook on Luke Brooks late in the game in Vegas, which… it wasn't nice watching.<\/p>\n

\"Gus<\/p>\n

"But they are all down, and especially the creative players. They've got no room to move because their forwards are struggling.<\/p>\n

"\ufeffThere are so many stories and noises coming out of Souths – just please win so you can shut it all down."<\/p>\n

In last week's 28-18\ufeff loss in Brisbane, the only South Sydney forward who ran for more than 100 metres was prop Tevita Tatola.<\/p>\n

\ufeffGenerally a rugby league team operates with the big men in the middle bashing the opposition defensive line with strong carries, then it's up to the smaller creative players to take advantage and create points.<\/p>\n

But with the forwards struggling, the backs have copped the flak.\ufeff<\/p>\n

Phil Gould believes the "panic" around \ufeffSouth Sydney is overblown, but admits Ilias has been made the "victim" of poor team performance.<\/p>\n

"I can't understand what's happened there at the moment, or what all the talk is about," Gould told Wide World of Sports' Six Tackles with Gus<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n

\""He<\/p>\n

"\ufeffThey've played Manly in Las Vegas – Manly look like the form team at the moment – and they've played the Broncos, last year's grand finalists, in Brisbane.<\/p>\n

"\ufeffWhy is everyone losing their mind? I don't get it.<\/p>\n

"They've made a pretty drastic team change… \ufeffmaybe they've said 'we will give the incumbents a couple of weeks to turn it around' and they've been unhappy with the result.<\/p>\n

"Lachlan Ilias is a victim \ufeffin this, he is a victim of the way the Rabbitohs are playing and how they're struggling. It's not just his fault that things aren't functioning."<\/p>\n

Dean Hawkins will wear the No.7 jumper against the Roosters on Friday in the absence of Ilias.\ufeff<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

South Sydney's spine has been torn to pieces at the selection table this week, but the heat has been placed elsewhere by league legend Andrew […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":378329,"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\/378327"}],"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=378327"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/378327\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":378331,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/378327\/revisions\/378331"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/378329"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=378327"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=378327"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=378327"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}