Souths kick on without Inglis

NO Greg Inglis. No Damien Cook. No Angus Crichton. No Dane Gagai. No worries.

When you tried to talk to South Sydney coach Anthony Siebold about coming up against a red hot Cronulla outfit without his Origin stars he didn’t want to hear about it.

He had a game plan. A game plan that has his team sitting right near the top of the NRL ladder.

To Siebold it didn’t matter who wore the red and myrtle jumpers last night, all they had to do was execute their coach’s game plan. They did exactly that and toppled Cronulla, the side that went into last night’s clash on the back of a six- game winning streak.

Not only did they stop the Sharks in their tracks, they sent an ominous warning to their NRL rivals. This South Sydney team means business, even in the Origin period and without their stars.

When former coach Michael Maguire looked at his roster in 2014, he knew he had something special, that something was brewing.

He had Sam Burgess, the kind of guy he described as “a player you build your title campaign around”. Aided by his behemoth twin brothers George and Tom, Burgess rolled through the opposition week in week out.

He also had depth. He had a crop of young kids putting pressure on the most senior players in the team. Maguire says competition for spots is the only way to get the best out of every player on the park..