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Rabbitohs rookies provide silver linings following a tough Thursday night

The Rabbitohs were beaten by a Broncos side that was better on the night, going down 32 points to 12 at Accor Stadium on Thursday. It was a tricky game to navigate for Souths, with the Broncos coming off the heels of a massive victory over the Sharks and Adam Reynolds coming back to his old stomping ground with a vengeance.

The Rabbitohs were also missing a few key players, importantly contending with the late withdrawal of Thomas Burgess who was expected to play a massive role in the game. With all the factors considered, it was still a disappointing outing and one that the Rabbitohs will have to improve on quickly.

Consistency has been hard to come by for the Rabbitohs in 2022 with a squad that has been constantly changed due to injuries and suspensions, and look at some of the positives from this situation, the blooding of a number of youngsters to bolster the depths of the NRL squad may be a silver lining later in the season.

With a current injury list headlined by Latrell Mitchell, Thomas Burgess, Hame Sele and Jacob Host, Souths have lost some experienced veterans in the last couple of weeks. These unfortunate injuries have allowed the debuts of some of the brightest talents to come out of the Rabbitohs system in recent years. In the last four weeks, Isaiah Tass, Shaquai Mitchell and Trent Peoples have all impressed on their NRL debuts, staking their claims to become full-time pieces of the first-grade squad in the process.

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Although Souths have struggled without the aforementioned veterans, the flashes of potential shown from the recent debutants should give the fans plenty of reason to be hopeful for a turn of results sooner rather than later. Tass and Mitchell excelled in limited time on debut, with Tass getting a memorable try in the process. Thursday night saw the latest debutant, NSW Cup standout Trent Peoples make his Rabbitohs debut, giving Souths a massive boost going forward.

Peoples has been instrumental in the recent winning streak from the Rabbitohs NSW Cup side and translated his form into the NRL. In a memorable debut, Peoples finished the night with, 110 run metres, four offloads, 24 tackles and a line break, playing a whopping 64 minutes from the bench in a demonstration of how much faith the coaching staff had in Peoples to perform at the highest level.

Coach Jason Demetriou praised on the debutant: “I thought he was outstanding, he did what you asked of any kid makes his debut, he was aggressive, he defended exceptionally well, he runs good lines and he played with what we expect all of us to have, a desire to do his job, I thought for a kid coming in with a performance like that he was he was very good.”

Peoples became a massive asset off the bench and was one of the go-to forwards for the Rabbitohs in attack. Isaiah Tass notched up another commendable display in just his third game of NRL, proving his worth and giving Demetriou another reliable option when selecting his teams.

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The team are the first to admit that the performance on Thursday night was poor, the signs of growth from some of the individuals in recent weeks have been positive. As Souths begin to welcome back some of the experienced players, the competition for spots in the NRL squad will undoubtedly give the players a much-needed boost and lift in performance, in turn helping the results in the process.

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