Sign up now!!! <\/a><\/p>\n‘Can’t put a price on leadership’ | 02:20<\/p>\n
PHINS FALL FLAT<\/p>\n
The Dolphins were the NRL\u2019s most potent attacking unit last year, scoring a competition-high 721 points, but their leaky defence cost them a finals debut.<\/p>\n
That became the focal point of coach Kristian Woolf\u2019s pre-season \u2013 but at what cost?<\/p>\n
At their best, the Dolphins were the best team in the NRL to watch last year. But we saw little of that fluency on Sunday.<\/p>\n
At halftime, Dolphins halves Isaiya Katoa and Kodi Nikorima had zero runs between them and Hamiso Tabuai-Fidow had barely been spotted.<\/p>\n
Katoa put a rampaging Kulikefu Finefeuiaki through for a nice try but that was about the only piece of attacking brilliance from the Dolphins.<\/p>\n
The worrying thing for Woolf is that the Dolphins scored 30 points and still lost comfortably.<\/p>\n
Expectations at Redcliffe are high in 2026 and this was a poor start.<\/p>\n
FIFITA\u2019S MIXED RETURN<\/p>\n
High-profile Souths recruit David Fifita had a mixed bag in his return to the NRL.<\/p>\n
Playing his first game for the Rabbitohs following a turbulent five seasons at the Titans, Fifita had some forgettable moments early when he missed Finefeuiaki and fumbled a play-the-ball.<\/p>\n
But the Fifita of old appeared when he burst through the line and put Johnston over for his 211th NRL try, bringing the flying winger within one of Ken Irvine\u2019s all-time record.<\/p>\n
The good news for Fifita is he doesn\u2019t have to dominate every game. Moments of brilliance and consistent contributions will be enough in this star-studded Souths team.<\/p>\n
His 72nd minute argy-bargy with Dolphins co-captain Tom Gilbert saw both watch the final minutes from the sin bin, but it mattered little by then.<\/p>\n
‘Can’t put a price on leadership’ | 02:20<\/p>\n
RELIVE ALL THE ACTION IN THE LIVE BLOG BELOW. CAN\u2019T SEE IT? CLICK HERE!<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Bunnies are back. Alex Johnston edged closer to rewriting NRL history as Wayne Bennett\u2019s Rabbitohs announced they…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":526380,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[4558,64,63,28064,5079,5084,4532,1653,4509,162,28057,82648,198380,4597,18739,763,28081,70511,4578,14872,23995,779,1082,5093,122334,7291,4454,4501,174145,4439,85,4423,52510,15899],"class_list":["post-526379","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-alex-johnston","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-bayleigh-bentley-hape","tag-cameron-murray","tag-campbell-graham","tag-canberra-raiders","tag-cody-walker","tag-david-fifita","tag-dolphins","tag-dolphins-team","tag-dolphins-v","tag-edge-partnership","tag-euan-aitken","tag-felise-kaufusi","tag-fox-league","tag-herbie-farnworth","tag-horror-injury-toll","tag-jack-wighton","tag-jayden-sullivan","tag-jye-gray","tag-kristian-woolf","tag-latrell-mitchell","tag-match-centre","tag-moala-graham-taufa","tag-ricky-stuart","tag-schneider","tag-sean-keppie","tag-sebastian-su","tag-south-sydney-rabbitohs","tag-sports","tag-tallis-duncan","tag-thomas-flegler","tag-tom-gilbert"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/526379","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=526379"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/526379\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/526380"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=526379"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=526379"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=526379"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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