RABBITS RESOLUTE Preliminary loss last year motivation for Souths stars
GAME DAY
RAIDERS V RABBITOHS
CODY Walker could only stand and stare.
An emotional Damien Cook dropped his head into his hands. And Adam Reynolds could do little else but to find a consoling shoulder to lean on.
These are the images from 12 months ago that the Rabbitohs will take with them into their must-win preliminary final against Canberra at GIO Stadium tonight.
The sick feeling of losing the corresponding game last September has stayed with the boys from Redfern ever since.
Tonight is all about erasing those memories for the Rabbitohs.
Because so many past players will tell you, the pain and frustration of losing a preliminary final can actually feel worse than losing the grand final.
There's always a small sense of pride that, “at least we got to the grand final”.
But losing a preliminary final, for an NRL player, can often feel like everything achieved that season was for nothing.
That’s the case for the Rabbitohs — who have been waiting 12 months for tonight.
A year ago, the Anthony Seiboldcoached Rabbitohs were beaten in the grand final qualifier by eventual premiers the Sydney Roosters 12-4.
The scoreline in the history books reads like the contest was close.
“But they (Roosters) were probably in control for a lot of it,” Cook said.
“We really missed an opportunity. We went in with a game plan and the Roosters just picked us off.
“For me that loss lingered — and I know for a lot of the boys it did too.
“This doesn’t surprise me where we are (preliminary final), because I knew the team we had here and I knew how far we went last year and we felt like we missed an opportunity.
“I feel like a lot of us will take the experience of last year’s prelim loss against the Roosters into this game (against Canberra) and we don’t want to be feeling like that again.”
Such was the torment of South Sydney’s spluttering performance against the Roosters last year, Walker said the loss was the overriding reason he spent his break counting the days until the 2019 pre-season.
“Obviously the way you finish every season hurts that a little bit more — especially in a prelim,” Walker said.
“You can’t get wait to get back to pre-season to do all the hard work so you’re back in that position again to try and go one better.
“That was our motivating factor leading into last year. I wanted to come back and be fit and be ready to go for a big year.”