Wayne Bennett admitted South Sydney\u2019s big-money gamble on Lewis Dodd has backfired, with the English halfback now free to find a new club despite having two years left on his $650,000-a-season deal.<\/p>\n
The Rabbitohs coach, speaking a week after casting doubt on Dodd\u2019s future, said recruitment errors were inevitable, and this one would not be the last.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe do make mistakes, we do get things wrong, but we get a lot of things right,\u201d Bennett said. \u201cWe don\u2019t get the praise when we get it right. When we get it wrong, someone like Braith comes out, cheap-shotting the decision made at the time \u2026 we move on, learn our lessons.\u201d<\/p>\n
Price tag, form \u2013 or something deeper?<\/p>\n
Bennett stopped short of blaming the move solely on Dodd\u2019s performances, instead delivering a blunt hint at a deeper issue.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt might not even be his form, it might be his ability. You work it out,\u201d he told reporters. \u201cHe\u2019s in a tough place. The harshest thing that can happen to a player is to be told you\u2019re not in first grade, when you think you should be a first-grader.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dodd, who joined from St Helens, will turn out for Souths\u2019 NSW Cup side on Sunday while the NRL team faces Gold Coast in the so-called \u201cSpoon Bowl\u201d. Victory would help Bennett avoid the first wooden spoon of his 958-game career.<\/p>\n
Latrell Mitchell (quadriceps) and Brandon Smith (knee) both return for the Titans clash, while Campbell Graham has been ruled out for the rest of the season with a back issue. Bennett joked he\u2019d be \u201corganising a lot of hospital beds\u201d in the off-season after a year plagued by injuries.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Wayne Bennett admitted South Sydney\u2019s big-money gamble on Lewis Dodd has backfired, with the English halfback now free…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":55249,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,761,762,158,85],"class_list":["post-55248","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nrl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-national-rugby-league","tag-nationalrugbyleague","tag-nrl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55248","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=55248"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55248\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/55249"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=55248"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=55248"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=55248"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}