Souths Rabbitohs vs Sydney Roosters

They NRL could not have planned it better.

A real grand final atmosphere will surround this game as 1st takes on 2nd – Sydney v Roosters, with the winner set to claim the Minor Premiership for 2013.

After a dramatic and worrying start last week against the lowly ranked West Tigers, South Sydney found themselves trailing by 18 – 0 after only fourteen minutes.

Although the first fourteen minutes would not have pleased South’s Coach Michael Maguire, the way the Rabbitohs went about responded to the situation would have.

They were calm under pressure and scored two late tries in the first half and one within the first seven minutes of the second half to hit the front.

Two late tries in the final ten minutes, blew the margin out to 14 points (32 – 18).

Even though it was a win, it was far from Souths’ best performance of the year but should serve as a reminder to them, that now is not the time to be concentrating on the coming weeks. The focus has to be clearly on what is in front of them – especially the week.

The once indestructible Sydney Roosters have slumped to two surprise losses in as many weeks.

In round 24, as short priced favourites, they were defeated by Sharks 32 – 22 and last week, against an under-manned Titans outfit, and again at prohibitive odds, the Roosters suffered an eight point loss (30 – 22).

It appears to be Roosters defensive, the aspect of their game that has been so rock solid all year, failing them in recent weeks. Cronulla and the Titans have been the only teams all season to have registered 30 points or more against Sydney.

In fact, outside of the above two teams, the 20 point mark has only been surpassed by four opponents of the Roosters this year.

They need to get back to basics and muscle up in defence – especially here against the large Souths forward pack.

When the two sides last met in the opening round of this year’s competition, Souths won well 28 -10.

That was the first time in the last four matches between these two foundation clubs that the winning margin was greater than four points.

Would expect to see a winning margin back to close to that mark here with the Bunnies finishing on top.