The coming of age of halfback Lachlan Ilias has given Rabbitohs coach Jason Demetriou the confidence that his team can be the third team in as many weeks to take down premiers Penrith.
The Panthers suffered a shock 13-12 loss to St Helens in the World Club Challenge before losing to Brisbane by the same scoreline in round one, while the Rabbitohs venture to BlueBet Stadium on the back of a morale-boosting win over the Sharks.
Ilias' performance in attack and defence on Saturday night has him riding high ahead of a showdown with the game's premier playmaker Nathan Cleary, who has helped Penrith inflict painful defeats on Souths in the 2021 grand final and preliminary finals in 2020 and 2022.
Ilias and halves partner Cody Walker came under fire after a second-half fadeout in last year's grand qualifier but the 22-year-old produced arguably the finest performance of his career in the 27-18 win over Cronulla.
Playing just the 28th game of his NRL career, Ilias scored a try and had a hand in three others while also denying Cronulla winger Ronaldo Mulitalo a certain try with a desperate last-ditch tackle and shortening up Jack Williams with a team-lifting hit.
“That effort in the first half, that was a big play [on Mulitalo] and then we went up the other end and scored as well…so we backed it up and got the reward for it as well,” Demetriou said post-match.
Combinations the key for Lachlan Ilias
“But I’ve watched him make those efforts in pre-season every week and I wasn’t surprised to see him put it in.
“He’s a first-grader. He’s an established first-grader and he knows how to play footy.
“I thought he identified some areas that we could exploit in the first half and in the second half he was pretty clinical in going after it.”
Apart from his halfback's heroics, Demetriou said the “evolution” of centre Campbell Graham and edge forward Keaon Koloamatangi has helped the right-edge emerge as a big threat in 2023.
“I think our right side really grew last year and I thought the back end of the year we were as dangerous on our right as we were on our left,” he said.
“The evolution of Keaon and Campbell Graham has only added to that and I thought Izaac (Tu'itupou Thompson) was good so I think the big thing is we’ve got some stability on that edge.
“We had a lot of changes, but we’ve found who that edge is. They’ve spent some time in pre-season training together and they nailed it tonight.”
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