Roosters held crisis meeting following South Sydney semi-final defeat

While the South Sydney Rabbitohs were preparing to try and reach a fifth consecutive preliminary final, the Sydney Roosters' squad was searching for answers.

Heading into the first week of finals on the back of eight consecutive victories, the Roosters had regained control of their season after regaining control of their emotions, however, months of hard work came undone in the space of 80 minutes.

Victor Radley was twice sent to the sin bin whilst Jared Waerea-Hargreaves also had a ten-minute stint in the sheds during the fiery clash, which also saw Taane Milne binned twice, joining Thomas Burgess and Tevita Tatola to total seven binnings for the match.

The loss was so emotion-filled it caused Trent Robinson and his squad to go searching for answers on how to control their aggression and their actions before facing their arch-rivals again.

“The review was more about how can we better control (our emotions),” five-eighth Luke Keary told The Daily Telegraph.

“At the back end of the year we were good at controlling ourselves and the game, the swings and momentum. It just got away from us.

“At that point of the year we were going so well but we went away from everything that we did well for the last two months before we did that.

“We went in the opposite direction and paid the price. All the craziness of the game, both teams had to deal with it and they dealt with it better, they performed better, we lost the plot.”

Nat Butcher, a South Sydney junior, enjoyed his first start in a finals game that afternoon, touching down on the back of a neat Keary grubber.

However, after winning a premiership off the bench in 2019, Butcher knows what glory tastes like, and was disappointed to bow out like that last season.

“It was a pretty emotional game that last final and pretty disappointing we didn't get the win there," Butcher said.

“A couple of people went off and we felt as a team that we got a bit lost. We spoke about that - we ended up doing review after the game.

“We took a lot of lessons out that. We normally review in the pre-season but we reviewed that one straight after the season ended.

“Not every footy game is played the same way and when games like that get out of hand, there is a different way to play it.

“We reviewed the game that week and you sort of dwell on it all off-season. We had a great pre-season and chats were had - we spoke about that game again and knowing how to control our emotions better when the game does get a bit out of hand.

“We should have just held our composure. We let it get the best of us. I guess we will move forward and learn from that.