Although he wouldn’t admit it, Jason Demetriou looked relieved when he sat down for his press conference following the Rabbitohs’ first win of the season.
The pressure has been mounting on South Sydney — and more specifically Demetriou — after an 0-3 start to the season.
They desperately needed to win to calm some of the outside noise and although it “wasn’t perfect,” according to captain Cameron Murray, they got “what we came here to do.”
The first question Demetriou was asked was about he was feeling after the 20-16 victory over the Bulldogs. He cracked a smile and avoided talking about himself.
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“I was really proud of our tryline defence, to be honest,” he said.
“We’re playing like a team that’s nervy — you can see that — but to keep turning up the way we did…
“I’ve said it all week and I said it in the press conference last week, I’ve got a huge amount of trust in these blokes.
“I see every day how they work, I see how committed they are to each other and we just wanted to see that out on the field tonight. I think we saw that.
“It’s about getting reward for your effort. We’ve been looking to solve problems with, whether it’s a sweeping attack or a big shot here or rather than tonight we just worked hard.
“To concede only 12 points (prior to the Bulldogs try off a quick tap in the 79th minute) was pretty special with the amount of ball they had.
“We just kept turning up, we just kept finding a way and we’ll get a lot out of that.”
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Murray, however, said “yeah” when asked if the win was a relief and opened up on the positive lead-up the team had — despite coming off a horror 48-6 loss to the Roosters.
“We had a really good week. We walked in Monday morning confident still because we knew what we’re capable of,” Murray said.
“We didn’t put too much pressure on ourselves — pressure is from the outside.
“It wasn’t perfect tonight but it’s what we came here to do. We came here to work hard on our effort areas and out-compete the opposition. We did that.
“That’s what builds confidence — the resilience on our tryline and turning up for each other.”
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Demetriou also dived into the week that was and revealed there were some honest moments driven by himself and the team’s leaders.
“For me, the best part about this week has been our honesty and the honesty not only from the coaches but from our captain and our leaders in the team,” he said.
“They know where we need to get better, it was all about effort tonight and I think we saw that in spades.”
At the centre of the effort areas was superstar fullback Latrell Mitchell, who looked more involved with ball in hand to start the game and also had some big defensive moments.
“I’m really proud of how he’s been focused on the team first this week,” Demetriou said.
“He’s been all about what he needs to do for his teammates and how he needs to improve — the whole team has done that. I’m really proud of them.
“He’s had a great pre-season. He looks in great shape and he’s put himself in a position to do those type of things.
“He had a focus this week to get in the game early and he did that. He also had a focus to make sure our tryline defence was strong… I thought he did that well.”
Demetriou was asked if he felt personally vindicated after a week of criticism and opinions about him as a coach but he batted away the question.
“I get that there’s noise about that but I don’t come to work every day worrying about whether I have a job or not,” he said.
“I come to work knowing that I’ve got a job to do to help these guys prepare to play footy.
“I work hard every day to do that… I’m not going to put my head noise onto them — it’s for me to deal with. I’ve got to concentrate on making sure they know I believe how good they are.”
Source Agencies
