Can Souths end their finals struggles in 2023?

Souths have been consistent since 2018, making five straight preliminary finals. I’m sure many teams would like to have that kind of record.

But at the same time, they have only one grand final appearance and zero premierships to show for it.

With the Bunnies’ season being ended one game shy of the grand final again, it’s time to look forward to 2023.

This season they had the toughest schedule, facing the Panthers, Roosters, Storm and Eels twice. Despite making five prelims, the Rabbitohs have only had one year in which they won in Week 1 to get the week off – in 2021, after they beat Penrith and then ran through Manly to get the grand final.

That means Souths have taken the longer route through the finals series, which puts them at a disadvantage physically and mentally, especially if teams rest their players in the final week of the regular season and another top-four team gets the week off.

The 2023 season will be closer because the top teams in the competition like the Storm, Panthers and Eels are losing multiple experienced players, but the Rabbitohs are only losing prop Mark Nicholls, halfback Kodi Nikorima to the Dolphins and winger Jaxson Paulo to the Sydney Roosters.

Souths are also hoping to re-sign superstar fullback Latrell Mitchell, five-eighth Cody Walker and dummy-half Damien Cook.

Jason Demetriou and his coaching staff need to fix Souths’ ball-handling because statistically they were top-five in errors made. Their second and most important mission is to work on their defence, which ranked second-last in the teams that finished in the top eight.

The third mission is to work on field-goal kicking because they lost three games in 2022 by one point, which may not seem like a lot but you tally that up and they finish fourth.

They will be running out one of the best forward packs in 2023 though, with Junior Tatola, Keaon Koloamatangi, Jai Arrow, Cameron Murray, Tom Burgess and Siliva Havili all building Mitchell, Cook and Walker a platform.

They have a big off-season ahead of them but I do believe South Sydney can win the grand final and the club’s 22nd premiership in 2023.

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