Cameron Murray had a damning response to Souths’ 42-38 loss to the Knights, while coach Wayne Bennett called the high-scoring thriller ‘crazy’ as both teams forgot about defence.
The six-again rule changes have led to some high-scoring games this season and in this case it was exciting for the fans, but Murray said it was less enjoyable to play in.
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“There’s been some pretty high-scoring games this year, so momentum can shift pretty fast and when you have momentum, it’s hard for the other team to win it back,” Murray said.
“It’s just so important to find that momentum early because it’s hard to win it back and it almost seems easy when you’ve got it.
“It’s just the game’s turned it into one of those moments where if you win good field position, if you’ve got the momentum, it makes it much easier for you to score points.”
Murray was pressed on whether games like that are more enjoyable to play in.
“No,” Murray replied bluntly.
Bennett was proud of his side for fighting back from 24-0, but lamented their inability to close it out in the end after a Latrell Mitchell conversion of his own try looked to have stole a famous win.
“Oh, crazy,” Bennett said in summing up the game.
“That team’s really brave. That’s one of their pluses. They couldn’t have tried any harder at the end there and gave it away a couple of times and find a way to get in front in the end and then still gave it away.”
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Despite the loss, Bennett knows he has a team that knows what works for them, but he just wishes they did it more often.
“Well, the good thing about the team, they know what they’ve got to do,” Bennett said.
“They know what wins for them and they know what loses for them okay and eight weeks into the season and we’ve had some really good wins and we’ve had a couple of poor losses. “But I think our biggest loss has been by four points and so we know what works for us and what doesn’t.
“But it was like both teams just wanted to outscore each other today and they forgot to defend too, so it wasn’t just us.”
Murray felt it was one of the wierdest games of footy he has been involved in as defence went out the window.
“Both teams just forgot how to defend and it was a bit of a score-athon, so it was a weird one,” Murray said.
Murray was pressed on how his side got back into the contest from such a huge defecit.
“We just said we know what works for us,” Murray said.
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“We know if we win field position and we give ourselves every opportunity and that first 15-20 minutes where we had our backs against the wall there and a few tries against us, we couldn’t really get out of our half and when we got the opportunity to have the ball, then we gave it back to them.
“A lot of the start comes down to our errors and handing them field position and then not being able to defend our errors.
“So it was more just about being positive and just reminding everyone what works for us and just to get the fundamentals right and front-loading and doing our best to win field position. “There were patches there that we got back into it and then, again patches where we just went to mush a bit, so it was a bit of a weird one.”
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Mitchell was a highlight for the Rabbitohs with a performance that nearly snatched victory from the jaws of defeat, but Murray challenged the team to get him the ball more often.
“I’m done being surprised at what Latrell can do,” Murray said.
“He’s a pretty special player, so we’ve got players like Latrell on our team where if we just win field position and the forwards lay a platform for them and get them into a position where they can do things like that, then good things come off the back of that, so the challenge for us is just to consistently do that.”
Bennett confirmed Jack Wighton suffered a suspected fractured forearm, but didn’t have any idea how much time he would miss.
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