Wayne Bennett is very funny and hard to please.
And last night was no different.
South Sydney’s Rabbitohs head coach hit his own side after a 26-18 loss at the hands of Storm Melbourne in the opening game of the NRL season.
By ruling top players the Storm sent a hard message to the rest of the tournament by conceding 22 points to the Bennett boys within the first 30 minutes.
And while his side avoided a disgraceful loss by returning the score late, the team’s overall performance came under fire from the man in charge.
“Well that first half was awful,” Bennett said in his post-match press conference.
“After that he was just doing his best.
“We never gave ourselves a chance. Two weeks ago we didn’t make a handling error in half and we come out tonight and we were full of defensive and handling errors.
“So it comes back to an idea and it wasn’t there, was it?”
And while admitting that Melbourne were the better side of the night, Bennett admitted that his Bunnies side were there to take them.
“Melbourne were good and they always are and it’s a credit to the way they play and they wanted it more than we did,” he said.
2 hours ago“There may be some hype (around South Sydney), but there will be no hype around them today until that is good.
“We had to do something so I was glad we played well for 30 minutes.
“But then we just committed suicide with 10 minutes to go and did everything again silly.
“Maybe part of the Benji Marshall and Jai Arrow equation are playing their first games for South Sydney and want to give everyone a good idea and there were a lot of other guys who have played a lot of games. played for South Sydney and they were hoping we could have an easy night. “
Arms folded and delving deep into the souls of the media member asking the questions, Bennett didn’t look so happy.
But make no mistake, under his elite leadership the Bunnies will be hoping to challenge for the Premier League this season – even if they are completely unconventional in their opening game.