Wayne Bennett has been in rugby league for more than 50 years, but is still struggling to explain two things – South Sydney’s 0-20 record in Melbourne and what he sees as a lack of consistency when it comes to sin-binning players for hip-drop tackles.
Bennett and the Rabbitohs will be hoping to end one of the game’s longest hoodoos on Saturday night when they take on the Storm at AAMI Park.
Souths have failed to return from the Victorian capital with a victory since the Storm entered the competition. Seven games were held at the old Olympic Park before 13 fruitless outings to AAMI Park followed.
In comparable numbers, the Illawarra Steelers lost 19 straight games at Belmore from 1982 to 1996, which included Monday night games against teams other than Canterbury, while Newtown and Parramatta dropped 16 and 15 straight games respectively when taking on the mighty St George team of the 1950s and ’60s at Kogarah during their amazing run.
Souths lost in Melbourne in golden point in 2022, and were denied a qualifying-final win in 2018 when Cameron Munster kicked a late field goal.
When asked if his players would struggle to ignore the Melbourne hoodoo, Bennett said on Friday: “I hope not. It’s a new game, new year, let’s go down there and do our best, and see what happens.
“It’s a difficult place to win at. They’ve been a top team for a long time.
“I haven’t been counting [the number of defeats]. You can’t change things from week to week. It’s difficult. It usually collapses on you and doesn’t work. We are what we are, we’ll go down there and be committed to playing the full 80 minutes.”
David Furner, who now works at South Sydney, remembers ending the Canberra Raiders’ hoodoo in Melbourne. The Raiders had not won in Melbourne for seven years, but triumphed in 2009 only after they were forced to walk to the ground after the team bus broke down approaching the stadium.
Furner reckons being forced to walk the last part of the journey helped the players take their minds off the 80 minutes that were ahead.
Most consecutive losses at one venue
Illawarra 19 Belmore Sports Ground (1982-96)
Newtown 16 Kogarah Jubilee Oval (1957-77)
Parramatta 15 Kogarah Jubilee Oval (1950-70)
Penrith 15 Kogarah Jubilee Oval (1967-81)
Western Suburbs 14 Brookvale Oval (1965-78)
Annandale 14 Birchgrove Oval (1914-20)
Eastern Suburbs 14 Sydney Sports Ground (1965-67)
Parramatta 14 Stadium Australia (2010-14)
Penrith 14 Brookvale Oval (1967-80)
Canterbury 13 Suncorp Stadium (2016-24)
Eastern Suburbs 13 Kogarah Jubilee Oval (1952-71)
Penrith 13 Sydney Sports Ground (1967-76)
South Sydney 13 AAMI Park (2010-25)
South Sydney 13 Sydney Cricket Ground (1942-48)
Stats provided by David Middleton
The Storm are coming off five straight losses, while Souths have their stars firing – including Latrell Mitchell, who scored four tries last weekend, and former Melbourne premiership winner Brandon Smith.
Also of concern for Bennett is trying to work out why some players were binned for hip-drop tackles, and others were allowed to stay on the field, only to be later charged by the match review committee.
Souths hooker Peter Mamouzelos was charged with dangerous contact and binned last week for a tackle the NRL later considered a ‘bear trap’, rather than a classic hip-drop. In the same game, Dragons prop Emre Guler was charged with a hip-drop tackle, but avoided being sent to the bin.
When it was pointed out Wests Tigers counterpart Benji Marshall had, on Thursday night, called for consistency when it came to some of the officiating, Bennett teed off.
“Benji is a young coach; if he’s a bit confused about the rules, wait until he gets another 10 years into the job – if he’s asking for consistency, he’s wasting his time; you’ll never get that,” Bennett said.
“We had a situation in the game the other night [against the Dragons], our player goes to the sin bin for 10 minutes for a hip-drop, another player gets charged with a hip-drop but doesn’t go to the bin.
“It was the same ref, same bunker officials, but you have one rule for one, and one rule for another person.
“They [the NRL] come back with the line about, ‘this looked worse’. The bottom line is, if you do a hip-drop tackle, are we all going to the bin, or are we not?
“[We have] all these things in the game where we try to make it equal and competitive, but the sin bin is the worst thing for me personally because of the inconsistencies.
“And it has a huge impact on games. I don’t believe it’s fair. We have [a match review committee] that does a pretty good job reviewing all the games, and they get charged the next day.
“The bin is over-used … it’s loopy stuff.”
To be fair to the NRL, Koroisau became the fourth player binned for a hip-drop tackle, with the previous three offences resulting in players suffering injuries that will keep them out of action for at least eight weeks. Ryan Couchman’s tackle ended the season of Parramatta forward J’maine Hopgood.
Souths will welcome the return of Euan Aitken (leg), while Smith has been named in the back row, but is likely to start at lock. That would allow Cam Murray to shift to the left edge, where he has started during the past couple of weeks.
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