A young and exciting Souths’ outfit struggled to close out tight matches across a frustrating and injury riddled season. 

Todd Dammers’ side showed moments of brilliance though and will be better for the lessons they learnt throughout 2021. 

Overview with Todd Dammers: 

“In hindsight, I’d probably say that it was a season of missed opportunities,” Dammers told Rugby News. 

“In our first round, we lose three or four games by seven points or less and at one stage, we’d lost three games by a combined total of eight points.

“When you lose close games like that, it comes down to missed opportunities. 

“We also had a fairly significant injury list leading in to the second half of the year. It’s not something we spoke about but I think we had 13 Premier Grade standard players that were unavailable for more than six weeks each at a time. 

“That’s going to test any team, let alone a team filled with emerging young players. We’re not making excuses, but that certainly didn’t help us. 

“I guess the disappointment comes from not being able to nail those key moments in those tight games because that stopped us from taking any momentum into the back half of the year. 

“With such a young group, they learnt a lot because they didn’t have any experienced heads around to show them the way. 

“They had to learn together on the job and I think by the end of the year they were starting to show that they can match it with the other teams. Now we’ve got to take that next step so that we can finish off and win those tight games.”

What needs to happen at the club between now and round one next year?

“We’ve just got to keep working. We’ve got to look at recruiting some guys in key positions to add some depth and competition in certain positions. We also need to add some more experience and find guys that can help lead our younger players. 

“We’ve made some pretty significant changes in our coaching staff. Cian O’Connor, who was my assistant coach this year, he’s going to coach our colts next year. We know how important colts are to build a pathway towards Premier Grade. 

“We’ve also got Chris Latham, Graham Herlihy and a new S&C coach Haydn Wolfsbauer on board and they’ll all bring plenty of experience, knowledge and professionalism to the group.”

Is there a player that you think might have a breakout season next year? 

“There are quite a few actually. To be honest, it’s hard to pinpoint one due to the fact that we’ve got a lot of young players who we think are ready to go. 

“We think that this is their year. They’ve all played a season or two of Premier Grade rugby now and it’s time for them to step up and show that they can compete with and beat the better sides in the competition. 

“One name I’ll give you, because I thought he was outstanding in our reserve grade premiership side is Elijah Kepu at 13. He would have played a lot of first grade this year but he had a bad run with injuries. 

“He’s a quality footballer but he had a head knock early in the year, then a knee injury that ruled him our for 10-11 weeks. When he did come back, we wanted to get him playing footy so he joined reserve grade and probably single handedly turned that grand final in our favour in the end. 

“He’s quality and he’s ready for a big year in 2022.”

What do you hope that we’re talking about at this point next season?

“I just hope we’re talking about the fact that our young group have fulfilled their potential. That’s the biggest thing for us,” Dammers said. 

“You can read into that however you like but our young guys know how much potential they have and it’s now up to them to live up to it next year.”