Rugby league has been robbed of its next chapter in its biggest personal feud, with Wayne Bennett forced into two weeks isolation following a COVID-bubble breach on Wednesday.
But despite the master coach's absence at ANZ Stadium, there'll be plenty of animosity in the coaching box.
Whilst it has already been announced by South Sydney that Jason Demetriou will take the head coaching role in 2022 following the end of Bennett's contract, he will make his coaching debut 19 months before scheduled, given the top job for tonight's clash.
The assistant coach amassed 267 games as a player over a 13 year career in England, despite being born in Sydney.
He's coached the Keighley Cougars in England, won 40 of his 51 games at the helm with the Northern Pride, has been Wayne's assistant for four years, and yeah, he's not a fan of Anthony Seibold.
While the epicentre of the feud lies between Anthony Seibold and Wayne Bennett, Demetriou has been dragged through the middle by Seibold, and he'll be ready to put 'Seibs' to the sword in his NRL head coaching debut.
The fuse was lit in late 2018, when Brisbane Broncos CEO Paul White sacked Demetriou, Brisbane's assistant coach at the time, because he 'didn't fit into Anthony Seibold's plans'.
Seibold pulled three members of the Rabbitohs' coaching staff away with him at the end of 2018, meaning Demetriou got the chop alongside Jeremy Hickmans, Scott Barker and Tannath Scott at the club.
Wayne didn't bring a single staff member across with him. He eventually signed Demetriou after he'd been sacked from his duties at Red Hill, but believed it wasn't fair for him to rip the staff apart.
“When I was interviewed for the job for 2020, Shane Richardson told me that I couldn’t bring staff with me. He said they have a wonderful staff here and they are all contracted and I said that is fine, I don’t want someone losing their job because I am turning up" Wayne said at the time.
And while that fuse was lit mostly behind doors, it blew up in August last year, with Demetriou calling out Seibold's attacking structures after Seibold said 'not much changed about Souths' attack since Wayne took over'.
“Teams worked his style out. Last year (in 2018), in 160 minutes of football under Seibold in the finals, his Souths team managed one try. On the biggest stage in the biggest games, their attack fell down. They scored one try against the Dragons and none against the Roosters.
"The teams at the business end of the season shut down any attacking threat Souths had under Seibold. They went from the best attacking team in the comp to a team that couldn’t score points when it mattered".
Since those comments from Demetriou, Seibold has played one finals match - a 58-0 loss to Parramatta last year. Which means, across Seibold's last three finals games, his side's have combined for one singular try.
Seibold fired back at Demetriou, declaring the assistant coach was 'dirty' he didn't get the Brisbane head coaching role, and his attention to detail was 'probably why he wasn't a head coach in the NRL'.
Well Seibs, now he is.
Wayne and Jason have a handy lead over Seibold, winning four against him, and tasting defeat just once - Round 2 this season.
While Bennett will allow Demetriou to coach without interruption tonight and give him the reins over the next fortnight, it is expected that the pair will exchange daily video calls to allow a synergetic fortnight in terms of the side's training.
Brisbane will have a virtually full-strength pack against the Rabbitohs, who lost Jaydn Su'A at the judiciary on Tuesday night, and are already without Ethan Lowe, Tom Amone and Hame Sele in the forwards, the latter being given a three-year extension last week.
While Seibold is the most experienced of the pair, Demetriou handles a lot of South Sydney's hands-on coaching as well as the majority of their attacking structures, and will be ready for a baptism of fire into the NRL tonight.
