South Sydney’s horrific injury woes have continued after going down to Newcastle on Saturday without four halves options.
The Rabbitohs were missing Cody Walker, Jamie Humphreys, Jack Wighton and Latrell Mitchell among others — and now they look set to lose their best player Jye Gray and hooker Peter Mamouzelos.
Gray left the field with what a hamstring problem in the 58th minute, but he later shared a more positive outlook.
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“Obviously a bit painful,” he told the ABC.
“I hit it last week in Melbourne, unfortunately got hit in the same spot again there. Hopefully nothing bad, I think it’s just a cork.”
Mamouzelos dislocated his right elbow with just one minute to go in the match but the agonising situation continued well beyond the siren.
Club doctors had struggled to resolve the most immediate concern even by the time Souths coach Wayne Bennett sat down for his post-match press conference.
“He can’t get it back in right now so he’s in a fair bit of pain actually,” Bennett said.
Mitchell is due to return to face the Broncos next week but the Bunnies will still be under-manned.
And Bennett, speaking after their fourth loss in a row, insisted injuries cannot be blamed for poor performance.
“We use it as an excuse and we are not going to get any better or improve ourselves,” Bennett said.
“We just have to live with that. We can do better than we did today.
“It’s the NRL. No-one is going to give you compensation for that. I don’t want our players to use it as an excuse.
“They all get well paid and they all think they want to be first graders. They have got to play like first graders, it is as simple as that.
“It’s a concern. How do I fix your attitude? I can’t. It’s personal. They have got to fix it, of course they have. They have got to own it first.”
Super League recruit Lewis Dodd made his first start but the Englishman’s kicking game was ineffectual, as was Jayden Sullivan’s.
“Not very good,” Bennett said, when asked for an assessment of his team’s display.
“The start was poor, 18 points down pretty early, and after that we weren’t too bad.”
Despite his criticism of the team, Bennett said Rabbitohs fans could take heart from the grit in the squad.
“At 18-0 we could have been beaten by 50-odd,” he said.
“They have got a team that won’t give up. We have been in the situation two or three times the last month when we could have been beaten by 50 or 60 points. They will hang in and keep fighting back.”
– with AAP