Callmack's 2024 Season Review

[Callmack1]

Hey guys, now that Season 2024 is done, and unfortunately won (not by us), I thought I'd do a bit of a Season review that will include a quick overview of the year, the key reasons why I think it all went wrong, and a player-by-player review. It will be a long so I understand not everyone will want to read it, but I thought I'd do it anyway. Mainly for me so I can do a bit of reflection in my head, and then be ready to move on to 2025. But if some of you read it in your own time, and get something out of it, then that's awesome! So here goes,

Overview

2024. Well, the Season has come and gone just like that, and I honestly cannot believe how quickly it flew by. It feels like just a few weeks ago I was watching stuff about the boys being in Vegas and now, boom, it's whizzed by. I'm sure I speak for many Souths fans when I say I'm extremely relieved and happy to see the back of Season 2024 because it has been one of the worst I've ever experienced as a Souths fans. Literally just the most horror year you could possibly imagine where basically everything that could go wrong, did.

We literally only won seven games all year, sacked our coach and had an interim for the rest of it, were completely obliterated with injuries like I have never seen before, and had a lot of outside noise and negative headlines that were quite simply awful to deal with all Season. This saw us finish 16th which is our worst finish since 2006 when we finished dead last. The sad thing is that we all knew it was over before Round 10. Terrible, awful disgusting year that I can't wait to forget about and put in the rear-view mirror.

Missing the finals, let alone finishing in the bottom four, is simply not acceptable for our club. We seem to have gone from a powerhouse to the shithouse in a year and a half.

It was certainly depressing and never have I been so non-hyped about my team. In a normal year, I feel extremely hyped all week leading up to the game, and that just builds during the week to absolutely explode on game day. I think I only really felt that maybe three of four times this year, the rest of the Season I just felt flat. That is so unlike me, and I don't even remember being like that in 2016 or 17, when we had shit years, so that says a lot about the year. Jeez it was hard to get through.

Despite all this though, I supported the boys right through and I love this club now just as much as I ever have, and I take pride in that.

 

[Callmack1]

Where did it all go wrong?

As we all know, the issues started in mid-2023 and haven't been fixed since, but we're talking about just 2024 here, so I'll stick with that.

Pre-Season, JD, and attitude/mentality

For me, one of the fundamental areas it all went wrong for us in 2024, was the Pre-Season. 2023 was bad, but that happens sometimes in Footy and sometimes it just spirals out of control. I was hoping that was the case for 23, and that we'd fix things over the summer and be back in 24. Well, that certainly wasn't the case at all.

I'm at a point where I honestly don't know what they did in the Pre-Season because we went backwards. Just about nothing was fixed and we looked even worse this year, than we did last year. It is completely unacceptable to go through a Pre-Season and not fix anything, especially when the issues from the previous year were somewhat obvious.

This all comes back to coaching for me, specifically JD. I know it's not solely his fault, but he is the head coach and the buck stops with him. He failed miserably at prepping this side for the Season and ensuring we were in the right frame of mind and in the right condition to succeed in 2024. I think he was far, far too soft on the players and doesn't have an ability to crack the whip and manage the egos in our side. He let the players drive the culture too much and wasn't willing to stand up to them and pull them into line when things went wrong. As a result, standards slipped big time, and attitude just wasn't where it needed to be clearly. So, man management was clearly off.

I also think maybe JD just lacked the ability to identify what was really going wrong and fix it. It was like he was so in-denial that his ways were correct that he wasn't willing to put his hand up and change tactics.

I think this royally screwed us over the Pre-Season as it meant things in our game weren't properly addressed and fix. If the club nailed the 2024 Pre-Season, I guarantee you this Season review would be a lot different.

So, yea, we just got the prep in the Pre-Season completely wrong.

I think this led to a poor attitude and mindset across the playing group which has plagued us for the entire year. I know I'm about to talk about this very generally, but there were signs off all of this in every single loss we had this year. There seemed to be just a really poor attitude in just about all our losses this year where no one really looked switched on or fired up. It was like they were under-prepared for each game. There was a complete lack of focus and urgency in our team this Season where no one really wanted to do the one-percenters or put their body on the line. There was a lot of just 'going through the motions' sort of stuff in just about every loss we had. Basically, we would get the basics wrong time and time again.

Souths were a mentally weak team this Season too. No sort of backbone or even a glimpse of resilience. Just a poor mindset. This is highlighted when we'd give away a penalty or make an error, and then concede a try in the set after. I have lost count of how much that happened this year, but I reckon it happened at least once in every game.

The players should take a lot of the blame for their poor attitude and mentality in 2024, but I still think the main reason for this was JD. We were basically doomed from the start with JD's shit coaching. His poor tactic's, man-management, and poor selections lingered the first eight Rounds until he was finally sacked leading into Round 9. We were never going to recover after that, and we were screwed from then on.

I think just how bad a fit he was as coach of our club was proven in the five-game winning stretch we had mid-Season after Hornby had taken over. There was life in our Footy again during that period, it was like a total reset. Attitude and mentality improved, and the boys looked a lot more switched on and invested in games. It made the world of a difference. I know we eventually reverted to the shit stuff under Hornby, but I think a lot of that was due to injury and just running out of troops.

I do honestly wonder what this year would have been like had Hornby been head coach all year. I just think we were doomed from the start with JD.

Fitness, injuries and the performance staff

We had a multitude of issues in 2024, there's no doubt about that, but there's also no doubt that injuries were one of the biggest issues and the biggest causes of our poor year. It really was the year of the injury. I have simply never seen an injury toll like it, and I have never seen a team as smashed and decimated as we were this year. It was absolutely ridiculous. So many injuries week after week as the year went on and it literally seemed like someone would get injured every week at times. I think we had a total of, what was it? 13 of 15 guys out for a while during the middle of the year. That is just complete and utter madness. What made it even more horrible, was the fact that we didn't get a lot of minor injuries in 2024, they were mostly pretty serious, multi-week issues. Some Season ending, in fact. Many of these to key players too.

The number of injuries, the level of severity of the injuries, and the rate that guys were getting injured just cruelled us even more. Give any team the injuries we had this year, and they'd struggle. it just completely obliterated any chance we had of doing anything in this comp this year, especially after that little five-game winning streak. We simply ran out of troops.

So, what were the reasons for this? Well, we won't ever fully know. Of course, terrible luck has a lot to do with it, but I think our prep, recovery and management had a lot to do with it too. To be brutally honest, the boys looked unfit and under-prepared at the start of the Season conditioning wise and I wonder if that had a lot to do with it. Maybe the lad's bodies just weren't prepared for a full Season of NRL. It certainly looked that way. That is all on the coaching staff and the high-performance team.

Whatever the reason, I think our high-performance team for 2024 have a lot to answer for. There is no excuse for it. I think the number of soft-tissue injuries we had this year, particularly calf injuries, is not a coincidence. Anyway, I won't go on about it because I've talked about it a lot during the year, just glad to see the broom is going through the high-performance team, because we need to change something.

 

[Callmack1]

Defence

One of the biggest problems of our disastrous Season without a doubt. We were just an awful defensive team this year, easily one of the worst in the competition. I mean, you just look at some of the scorelines this year and it tells the story. We conceded 28 points or more on 16, yes, 16 occasions this year. That is just a joke for a team who all Off-Season just talked about defence, defence, defence. It doesn't matter how good your attack is, or how many weapons you have in your team, if you can't defend, you're never going to go far in this competition.

For me, we had the basics in defence all wrong this Season. Firstly, line speed. Why the heck weren't the boys better in this area?? Honestly, our line speed was just about non-existent. For the entirety of the year, the boys would take a couple of steps off the line when the ball is played, then just stop and wait for the attacking player to come to them. Instead of getting up, coming up fast as a line and being aggressive, we were an extremely passive defensive team in general play this year. As a result, the ball carrier hits the line with more momentum, our defenders have no momentum, and we concede more meters. I just can't understand why our line speed just wasn't there all year?? Honestly, I can't remember trapping an opposition down in their 30-meter zone all year. I genuinely can't and it's because of our line speed. This all means that the opposition is kicking from around halfway or closer, and we're constantly rucking it out from our own end. We saw this countless times this year and it has infuriated me.

Then, our edge defence is the complete opposite, they were almost constantly too aggressive all year with the up-and-in style all year which rarely paid off. We were sliding a lot more in defence during our run of wins and it was working.

Our physicality in 2024 just wasn't there either. It was a horrendous missed tackle count every game and the first contact was poor more often than not.

Not to mention how crap the discipline was all year. Constant dumb penalties and six-agains.

I felt like a broken record at times throughout the year mentioning all this after just about every game.

A lot of our defensive deficiencies this year are down to JD in my opinion too. He solely took over the defence in 2024 and it got worse. It's not a coincidence we improved a little in that area after he was sacked, and Furner came in.

Attack

I'm not going to talk about our attack much really. Yea, it was probably one of the worst years we've had with the ball, but I think a lot of that was down to our side being decimated more than anything.

 

[Callmack1]

Player By Player

Johnston: Look, there’s no two ways about it, this was a poor Season from our champion winger. Granted, he wasn’t helped by our poor form, and the ball not finding him in good positions as much. He also struggled with injury a bit this year as he got injured in Round 4 and missed several weeks, then copped that sad Achilles injury in Round 21 which ended his Season. But his personal form was down too in just about all areas of his game. Only eight tries this year and he was far less impactful than what we’ve come to expect. It’ll be interesting to see how he rebounds and returns from injury in 2025.

Milne: Personally, this was probably the best year of Taane’s career so far. He played a lot more games than he would have expected at the start of the Season due to our injury crisis, and all things considered, he did a fantastic job. Of course, it’s Taane Milne, it’s not going to be perfect, he’s going to stuff up and have defensive lapses, but I think overall, he’s one of the only players who can actually hold their head up and say they gave it their all this year. Honestly, he was one of our better players. His carries were always solid from our own end, and he helped to get us out of trouble many times. Ran for an average of 152 meters, which isn’t bad. Taane also became a bit of an offload king and was very effective at it which I liked. Of course, he’s far from perfect, and there were the usual poor defensive lapses with the odd brain explosion, but for his Season overall, I tip my hat to him. I’d like to see him retained for depth and after his 2024 Season, I’d feel a lot more comfortable with him on our roster.

Kennar: We all know how I feel about Richie. This is going to be harsh, but he’s probably my least favourite player in this squad and he has been average at best for years so I’ve never been able to see why he keeps milking a career out of the NRL. But honestly, his 2024 Season wasn’t too bad. I’m not prepared to say it was good by any means, but he didn’t absolutely disgrace himself like he has in the past. Especially though our run of wins mid-year, he was actually quite solid, and I was mentioning a number of times throughout that period that maybe he’s changing my opinion of him. However, towards the end of the Season he did look a lot closer to the Kennar that I know and don’t love. But he’s still slow, a bad defender as we saw countless times this year, and he’s proven to have zero attacking threat. I thank him for his time with us, but I am glad to see him leave.

Walker: There’s no sugarcoating it for Cody, 2024 was an extremely poor year for him. Really bad by his standards if I’m being brutally honest. We all know what Cody brings, and I still maintain that he is up there with the greatest 5/8’s I have ever seen don the Red and Green, but this year just really wasn’t it for him. I think he was clearly playing injured for most of the year, and because of that his form suffered big time. So much so, that it really started to look like father time was catching up with him and his career may have been winding to a close. That’s how slow he was this year. Of course, there was still the odd, brilliant game, or the odd brilliant play, where we stand up and say, “vintage Cody Walker,” but he just wasn’t consistent enough throughout the year. Pretty disappointing when we really needed him to stand up and deliver. I do, however, think it’s not all his fault though because as I said, he was clearly playing injured, and the team around him did him no favours. Playing in the unfamiliar halfback role also didn’t help, but I do admire the way he adapted to that and did a serviceable job, without being outstanding. Career-worst year for our legendary 5/8 no doubt, but I’m still confident he’ll bounce back next year. It is a big year for him in 2025 because I think if he continues to look slow and how he was this year, then maybe it’s time to call it a day, but if he can return to form, then play on I say! I think he can do it. Wayne will get him happy again and help him thrive again. Cody is too good to be done just yet.

Gagai: Rookie Season, and I think in an ideal world, you’d never want him playing as much as he did, but he had a pretty outstanding year all things considered. One of the few shining lights in 2024. Granted, his form did fall away a bit in the back end of the year, but his first two thirds of the Season were damn good. Started with a hiss and a roar with a try on debut in Vegas, then he was unfairly dropped. Managed to fight his way back from that though to become our first-choice winger in an injury crisis. I don’t think he let anyone down. He showed us he has some finishing ability, I think he’s a reasonable defender, is decent with his running game and the tough stuff, while also having a bit of speed. Well done, Gags, cracking first year. While he won’t go into 2025 as the first-choice winger, I’m comfortable with him in the side when needed next year if it has to come to that every once in a while.

Tu’itupou Thompson: Only played a couple of games this year and they weren’t memorable to be honest. I don’t think I can really remember anything he did. Spent most of the year out injured and was never really good enough to work his way back. He departs in 2025. Gave us a good story, and there was a period there where I really thought he’d turn into something special for us, but not to be. Farewell Izaac and we wish you all the best.

L.Mitchell: Tough year for Trell really, and it was a bit of a typical Latrell year for all the wrong reasons. I thought he played amazing in Round 1 in Vegas, and I remember saying after that game that Trell was looking ominous for this Season. But that completely disappeared the next week and he spent the next 10-11 weeks having one of the poorest and toughest runs of his career. This included a few off-field issues such as the very public racism saga, the F-bomb interview after Round 2, and a diabolically poor and stupid performance in Round 5 where he did some grubby, really dumb stuff and got himself suspended for what was it? Three weeks?? That pissed me off so much, and after that, I was about ready to get rid of him, I think. It was reaching the point where despite how talented he was, how much I love him and how important he is to our side when he’s on, I just couldn’t cop the constant BS from him. And I don’t think the club could cop it either. To his credit though, he did return in good form. He looked refreshed, refocused and to be honest, he dominated the mid-Season. Absolutely dominated it, and throughout this period, he proved once again how important he is to our side. To put it simply, he carried us here and I don’t think we win that run of games without him. That’s how influential he was. It’s a real shame Trell picked up that foot injury against Parra which ended his Season and put the final nail in the coffin of our Season. The thing with all this though is that it’s the exact same story for him. Moments of brilliance, mixed with poor and stupid moments, and yet again he failed to play a full Season. I’ve got to be honest; it’s becoming a real issue and is one of our biggest problems leading into 25. I really hope Wayne and Trell can get it sorted because we need him fully if we are going to go anywhere next year. His rough year was compounded by this white substance scandal. Take your lessons Trell and put it together next year please.

Graham: Obviously no Footy at all for Stretch in 2024 which proved not only devastating for him, but it proved devastating for our Footy side too. Missed him big time, maybe one of our biggest losses of the year to be honest. I’m sure it would have been an extremely difficult year for him mentally, but he seems to have handled it well. What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, and I really hope that will prove to be the case and that he comes back and kills it next year.

Hawkins: I think the less that’s said about Hawkins’ 2024 Season the better. God, I just couldn’t cop him in the side at all throughout 2024. We went backwards with him at halfback earlier in the year, then he got injured, came back in late in the Season and basically did nothing. No impact on the game whatsoever. He’s not the answer at halfback and never has been. Seems like a great bloke, and is South Sydney through and through, but I’m not upset about him departing.

Ilias: Another player who had a rough year this year. Two games in first grade which didn’t go well, before being dropped after Round 2. Three games of reserve grade and then he suffered that horrendous leg injury in Round 5 which ended his Season. Tough one for the kid but I hope he bounces back. Sounds like Wayne wants him to stay and has a plan for him, so I kind of can’t wait to see where his career goes.

 

[Callmack1]

Tass: And the backs with Season-ending injuries just keep coming. Tassy was limited to just eight appearances earlier in the Season and I remember that he kind of struggled in those games. He then suffered the injury and that was him for the year. Happy to see him re-signed though, he’s great for depth and could go to a new level in the years ahead hopefully.

Teaupa: Disappointing this year to be honest. I know it was his debut year, so we can’t be too harsh though. Had high hopes for him after playing some great Footy in the NSW Cup last year but he just flopped in first grade and provided no impact. That game against the Sharks late Season was awful for him. He departs at the end of this Season.

Munro: Certainly not the Season we expected Ty Ty to have. We all expected that this would be his breakout year, but it was anything but. A collarbone injury just before the Charity Shield had him set for a big stint on the sidelines to start the year. Then, he clearly returned too early and re-broke it which was devastating to be honest. That saw him wiped out for months. Good to see him get some games, get some joy and have a few great performances late in the year. That hopefully has him pretty set for 25.

Wighton: Our high-profile recruit came to us this Season with a lot of expectation and hype, but it ended up being a little bit of a weird Season for Jack. He certainly made an impact on the squad and seems to have found a home here, but in terms of on-field, it didn’t really go as planned. Had a couple of good games at centre early on, but some of that was marred by a couple of poor defensive games. Was forced to move to 5/8 due to our injury crisis, and never moved from that position for the rest of the year. I think he was really good there, head and shoulders above a lot of the rest of the squad. Certainly consistent with his effort and leadership out there in every match. Had some classy games and ended up picking up the George Piggins Medal as our best player this year. It’s hard to argue with that because in a really poor Season, he was the best. Played just about every game and was at worst, solid in all of them. Well done, Jackie, but when you boil it all down, it’s no secret the year really didn’t go to plan for him. Hopefully back to centre next year, and we can really start to see the reasons why we bought him.

Gray: Rookie Season and boy, didn’t he impress?? What an impact in his first year!! Small, but he has the toughness and courage of a bloody Lion! With the speed of a cheetah! Pretty exciting and we saw a lot of these skills on show as he played quite a lot of Footy this Season. Some good moments where you sit back and think “wow, this kid is going to be special.” He will be, I have no doubt. You have to be good to perform like that and be one of our best in your rookie year. However, there is a lot of stuff in his game that needs developing, mainly ball playing stuff. Can’t wait to see how he progresses.

Shibasaki: Had one game with us on loan, and you’ve got to say he did a decent job. Was solid as.

Myers: Mid-Season pick up and ended up playing a few games. While I think he was nothing special, and his defence especially left a lot to be desired, I was impressed by some of the stuff he did with the ball. Proved to be a strong ball carrier with a bit of speed. Who knows? He may develop into a solid depth player.

 

[Callmack1]

Burgess: The final Season of a legendary career for one of our all-time greats. It’s such a shame we couldn’t send him out on a good note. However, if I’m being critical, this was probably one of the poorer Seasons from Tom personally. No issues with what he did with the ball really as he still remained one of our best go-forward forwards and constantly provided impact. However, defensively, he wasn’t great at all in a sign that maybe the game was starting to pass him by. He got stood up regularly and it looked like he was struggling to keep up at times. I’m sure he’d be disappointed with his Season if you asked him. But anyway, this is no disrespect to Tom, he’s one of my all-time favourite Rabbitohs. But just judging him on this year alone for this report.

Arrow: Man, how do you even describe his year? Tough? Brave? Unwavering? Soldier-like? Warrior-like? They’re probably all fitting. In terms of impact on the game and for our side, he was probably not quite at the level he would be, but we all know why that is. To put his body through what he did this year for our club is simply insane, and it’s a feat I will never ever forget. One of the greatest shows of toughness and resilience I have ever seen in a player. Simply amazing. If only half this squad had as much toughness and resilience as Jai, this report wouldn’t be as scathing.

Host: There’s no two ways around it, Hosty was pure shit this year. Really bad. So much so, that I can’t believe he played as many games as he did. Near zero impact on the game in all of those matches he played, and I honestly can’t remember anything of note he did in 2024. Extremely disappointing and he has a lot to work on for 2025.

Chee Kam: About what we’ve come to expect from Chee Kam. The number of games he played this year show you just how bad our injury crisis was. There’s no way he should ever be playing that much, but he simply had to out of necessity. Kinda like Host, he was poor this year, particularly with his defence towards the back end of the year. I do admire his versatility a bit, as he had to move around a lot, but that’s about the only praise I can really give him. No big loss as he moves on in 2025.

Havili: An injury interrupted year again for Liva as he seemed to pick up injuries regularly, but I did like his work this year when he played. I think Liva is very underrated and he showed it again this year. One of our only forwards in 2024 who gave it his all every game and was capable of having some impact.

Cook: Really sad that 2024 ended up being his final year with us, but I think he was solid this Season. Not outstanding or anything, but solid. He was far better than a lot of people gave him credit for. Played every game bar one, and I shudder to think what our already poor defence would have been without his efforts in the middle. I think it was probably one of his least impactful years with the ball, as his running game completely disappeared, but he certainly wasn’t helped by those around him. I think his importance to our side was seen and appreciated more when he had to move to centre or leave the field as we generally sucked around those times. A modern-day club legend and I’m quite sad that his time with us is over.

S.Mitchell: Not the best one for Shaq this year as he must have found quite challenging. He really struggled with his fitness, but I do still think he wasn’t bad when he played. 2025 is going to be an important year for his career.

Tatola: Much the same as our other long-term injured players that he managed six appearances early this Season, but I honestly can’t fully remember how he performed in those because it was so long ago. Really tough for him to pick up that foot injury which basically f**ked his year and it sounds like there’s been a lot of issues with it. A real shame for Junior.

Koloamatangi: Keaon had a real up and down Season. For the first ten Rounds or so, he was awful. Lazy, unfit, unmotivated, and just did so many stupid things that really had me questioning his place in the side and whether he should be dropped or not. It was just about as poor as I have seen him play his whole career. However, a move to lock after JD’s sacking saw his form completely re-ignited. So much so, that I genuinely believe he became one of the form forwards of the comp throughout our little mid-Season revival. He was that good! Just about carried the pack on his back. There were calls for him to stay there permanently, he was playing that well. But he was moved back to second row later in the Season and returned to playing like absolute crap which was disappointing. If 2024 taught us anything though, it’s that Keaon is best in the middle.

Murray: Look, he’s Cameron Murray, so he’s always going to be our best player and our leader, but if we’re being honest and properly critical (which I’m trying to be in this review), Cam had a pretty average Season by his standards. That’s not to say he didn’t try his guts out though. In just about every game he played, he worked himself to a literal standstill and you must applaud that. However, I don’t think his impact was as vast in 2024. He was also poor discipline wise which was a bit of a surprise. Plenty of silly penalties given away, and he even copped a couple of suspensions. I honestly think Cam would be disappointed with his Season personally.

French: Played one game this year and I thought he did well. Nothing special, but he was solid.

Mamouzelos: 2024 turned out to be a real wasted year for Pete in my opinion. We all thought that this would be the Season he’d begin to step up, and genuinely share the role with Cookie this year. While that did happen a bit, it didn’t happen nearly as much as we all expected. Some games he barely got minutes. I found that a bit disappointing, especially once we knew that Cookie was leaving. I also don’t think Pete showed us nearly enough to make us think that he was good enough to step into the role next year. His defence looked shaky at times and we barely saw a running game this year. In saying that though, there was some signs of a crafty hooker with some of his try assists he laid on. But I don’t think we got what we wanted from him this year and that is a huge concern heading into next year as our dummy half is a real unknown.

Moale: Probably the biggest positive to come out of this cluster f**k of a Season. A genuine breakout year for Davvy and he was really good! While I wouldn’t say he was dominant just yet, we’re finally starting to see the fruits of our labour, and we’re really starting to see a player there. He earned the starting spot in the pack and didn’t look back basically. Solid performance after solid performance, it was the consistency that was particularly impressive. I genuinely do think he was one of our best players this year as I barely had a bad word to say about him and he has taken a massive step forward in his career.

Duncan: 2024 was always going to be a big year for Tallis after his debut and a handful of games last year and honestly, I think he delivered on expectations. He was pretty good consistently throughout the Season, playing the role of Cam Murray when he was off. Gave it everything in every game and I think he can hold his head up high. If there’s one criticism I have of him, it’s that he was a bit of a ball hog at times and his ball playing still needs some work. But I guess that’s to be expected, and he needs to develop into that role. His defence held up, and I think generally, he won more collisions than not this year. He struggled a little in the games he played in the second row, but I still think that’s a position he could grow into as well. Good year Tallis! Can’t wait to see how you evolve going forward.

Keppie: Came to us this Season with a lot of hype and promise, but I have got to say he was extremely underwhelming. Beyond underwhelming. He had the odd, good game, but I think it was an extremely poor Season from Kep and he has a lot to prove in 2025. I really don’t know what more to say than that.

Le Blanc: Another bright spark in our year! Blancy managed six games in his debut year, and he has certainly made an impact! Not so much with the ball, where he was still good, but more without the ball. His defence was exceptional, especially his low tackles where he’d cut blokes in half. Seems to have handled the step up to first grade this year well so positive signs there.

 

[Callmack1]

Conclusion

In conclusion, I’m just so glad and relieved it’s over. Of course, I’ll miss watching our boys play every weekend, but I certainly won’t miss the hopelessness and feeling of despair I have had all year, in just about every game. Seriously, 2024 will go down as one of the worst Seasons in Souths history. I know there’s been a few bad ones over the last 116 years, but this year will go down us being up there, or should I say down there, with the worst of them. You know it’s bad when I think all of us were somewhat thankful when it finally came to an end.

Of course, we need to learn from this and make sure we never repeat it, but now that it’s done, I don’t ever want to speak of it or think about it again.

Can’t wait to move on from this, for November to roll around, to get into 2025 Pre-Season and start our journey again. A clean slate, a refreshed club, a new era. The Wayne ear volume two. It’s time to write the wrongs of the last two Seasons and begin our rise back to the top again.

And with that, the Season comes to a close. Callmack1 signing off for 2024, thank God for that.

 

[kounellikon]

Excellent review! Some things to disagree with, but for the most part, on the money.

 

[Rabbits21]

Great write up Callmack don’t fully agree on Jacob Gagai though look at his run metres the last 8-9 games very lazy with the shit work we can’t have that at this level. Jacob had a good first 6 games but an unacceptable last 9 games or so.

 

[Bruster]

Hey guys, now that Season 2024 is done, and unfortunately won (not by us), I thought I'd do a bit of a Season review that will include a quick overview of the year, the key reasons why I think it all went wrong, and a player-by-player review. It will be a long so I understand not everyone will want to read it, but I thought I'd do it anyway. Mainly for me so I can do a bit of reflection in my head, and then be ready to move on to 2025. But if some of you read it in your own time, and get something out of it, then that's awesome! So here goes,

Good idea of the back of the most miserable season we have had since 1990. It's called Writing Therapy. The view is that writing it all down gradually eases feelings of emotional trauma, very apt considering our 2024 Season. I read that it is also beneficial for alleviating stress caused by previously adverse events, again, our entire 2024 season. I am hopeing that reading this, as I am about to do, will give me the same benifit.

 

[Prowsey]

What is it the young people say...TL/DR!!

(I will read it, and this is my bookmark to come back to it when I have a moment)