Wayne Bennett saw the Rabbitohs 60-14 loss to the Broncos coming with 13 first graders out injured and a spine featuring just 30 games of NRL experience between them.
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Souths were brave again in the first half to trail 18-8, but the floodgates opened in the second half as the Broncos ran in seven tries.
Souths lost hooker Ryan Gray to an injury 10 minutes into the game and didn’t have an 18th man after Jamie Humphreys succumbed to concussion symptoms on the eve of the game.
“Well, I was really waiting for that to happen, to be honest with you,” Bennett said.
“I’ve just had a quick count in the changeroom and our spine have 30 NRL games between them,” Bennett said.
“We’ve been up for a long time. We’ve been battling every week and they’ve been giving everything they’ve got.
“I just knew we were running out of gas and we lost three players in the last 24 hours, so we’re down to 13 first graders not playing tonight.
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“These guys have just been up for too long. Young players, not experienced in playing NRL and each week I want them to do their best and they just hit the wall tonight.
“The Broncos were on and they deserve their victory and played well.”
Bennett has coached nearly 1000 NRL games and he can’t recall a worse injury toll in all his nearly 40 years as a head coach at this level.
“Oh absolutely, I haven’t gone close to that,” Bennett said when asked if this was the worst injury toll he has seen.
“Going to be 4-6 weeks at least!” | 06:11
“I think we had about eight or nine at Redcliffe last year at one stage, but we’re on 13 today.
“We didn’t have an 18th man tonight. The 18th man pulled out before the game.
“He had headaches from concussion two weeks ago and he’d been cleared and passed all the tests but he still wasn’t well.
“They came back in the last couple of days and he hadn’t said much to us and we made the decision before the game not to put him on the bench.”
Despite the heavy defeat, Bennett was not disappointed with his players and paid tribute to their fighting spirit and character led by Captain Jai Arrow.
“I’m not disappointed and silly that it may sound,” Bennett said.
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“I just know how hard they try and I can’t ask more than that.
“I know NRL better than probably most guys I’ve done it for so long and I’ve seen this happen through Origin periods when the Broncos had eight and ten players in Origin and we had kids up for two or three weeks and they just fall away then. So we’re in that place. “We’ve got to regroup and go again next week. Maybe we’ll have some back next week I’m not sure.
“Ten minutes into the game and we lose our hooker for the game. He didn’t come back. Anyway, that’s our lot and we’ve got to regroup.
“The captain was wonderful here. He never stopped trying. He was our sixth captain.”
In some positive news Bennett revealed Latrell Mitchell will be back in the next fortnight and Cody Walker could play again this season.
