The resounding victory over their arch rivals from Bondi (32-22) would give Russell Crowe and coach Michael Maguire a shot at the fairy-tale ending – Souths’ first premiership since that glorious day in 1971.
The win would also mean that long-serving junior and modern-day Rabbitohs legend, Nathan Merritt, who announced his retirement at the training session, could bow out a winner. Winning the premiership trophy would be the ultimate gift for Souths’ all-time leading try scorer, who has been through thick and thin with his beloved club.
“For us it’s very much about focusing on what we’ve been doing all year,” Maguire said.
After all, Souths won the majority of their games week in and week out, and were only one game away from taking the minor premiership, finishing the regular season in third spot.
At the training session in Redfern, before a thousand or so excited fans, the players seemed different. High performance manager, Troy Thomson, said the week off following the convincing win over Manly had done them the world of good. “We were able to rest up the guys that we needed to during the week, giving them time to recover and then really upped the ante in the back end of last week … [We] gave them the weekend off to rest up and back into it this week,” he said.
