🐇 Jason Demetriou | Rabbitohs Coach #33
Full Name: Jason Andrew Demetriou
Born: 6/9/1972 at Sydney, NSW
Club Playing Career: Newtown [Metropolitan Cup] 1997-98; Chorley 2000; Rochdale Hornets 2000; Widnes 2001-03; Wakefield Trinity 2004-10; Keighley 2011-12
Club Representative Career: Canada 2000
Club Coaching Career: Keighley 2011-12; Northern Pride [Qld. Cup] 2013-14 (premiers in 2014); Illawarra Cutters [NSW Cup] 2016 (premiers); South Sydney 2022-24
Representative Coaching Career: Queensland Residents 2014; Papua New Guinea 2024; PNG Prime Minister’s XIII 2024
Jason Demetriou is a St. George junior who played for the Dragons’ Harold Matthews and SG Ball Cup junior rep sides before moving to Newtown in the Metropolitan Cup. The centre-winger then had a short stint with Bondi and left Australia to play out the rest of his career in England. In thirteen seasons there with five different clubs, he played 225 Super League games, scoring 65 tries and three goals for a total of 266 points.
In 2000, he represented Canada at the Emerging Nations Tournament, playing two games and scoring three tries. He was twice selected to represent Greece in 2022, but off-season surgery stopped him from taking part.
When Wakefield Trinity opted not to re-sign him at the end of the 2010 season, he took on a captain-coaching role at Keighley for 2011-12. The following year he returned home to Australia where he coached Northern Pride in the Queensland Cup for two seasons. They won the QRL 2014 premiership after defeating Easts Tigers in the grand final by 36-4.
The next two seasons he was an assistant coach for the North Queensland Cowboys NRL side. In 2016 he coached Illawarra Cutters in the NSW Cup, and they also were premiers after defeating the Mounties 21-20 in the grand final.
The following season he became an assistant coach at Brisbane Broncos under head-coach, Wayne Bennett. When Bennet's tenure came to an end at the Broncos in December 2018, Demetriou followed him to the Rabbitohs for the next three seasons as assistant coach.
In 2022 he replaced the outgoing Wayne Bennett as head coach of the Rabbitohs, and in his first season took the club to the preliminary final – their fifth in-a-row (which also included a grand final appearance). In his second season he guided the Rabbitohs to second place on the NRL ladder during the midway point of the 2023 NRL season, but a massive form slump in the latter part of the season meant they missed out on making the top eight. Demetriou's tenure at South Sydney came to end midway through the 2024 season with assistant coach, Ben Hornby, stepping up into the interim NRL coach role.
The Papua New Guinea national team announced on 27 August 2024 Demetriou as their newly appointed head coach. He also coached the Papua New Guinea Prime Minister’s XIII side in 2024, which lost 42-20 to the Australian Prime Minister’s XIII.
