Perched comfortably atop the NRL ladder, South Sydney feel no need to weigh into the latest Ricky Stuart-sparked refereeing controversy.
Stuart fumed at referees’ boss Daniel Anderson and branded his system a disgrace after his Parramatta players were spanked 13-6 in the penalty count in Sunday’s 30-10 loss to Souths.
The impressive five-tries-to-two victory left the Rabbitohs three points clear of reigning premiers Melbourne, so not surprisingly the 2013 pacesetters have no interest in stirring the pot.
“I don’t really want to comment on the refs,” centre Bryson Goodwin said on Monday.
“We just go out there and play and they do what they do.”
And even without State of Origin stars Greg Inglis, Nathan Merritt, Chris McQueen and Ben Te’o and the suspended George Burgess, the Rabbitohs continue to go out there and play very, very well.
“We’ve won two from two (without our Origin reps),” Goodwin noted.
“The guys who have come in, they’ve just come in and really done a great job for our team.
“They’re all first-grade players. So if they were at other clubs, they’d probably be playing first grade.
“We’ve just got great depth and when they come in, they do a great job for us.”
Goodwin says Souths’ under-rated band of back-ups will be crucial come finals time should the Rabbitohs lose a key player to injury or suspension at the business end of the season.
“Because we know that when they come in, they perform. So it’s a bonus,” he said.
“We’re lucky here at Souths that we’ve got great players all the way through.”
The competition leaders will nevertheless be holding their collective breath on Wednesday hoping their Origin stars come through game two unscathed and are able to back up on Friday night against Canberra at ANZ Stadium.
“They’re our State of Origin players and you want them in your team,” Goodwin said.
“They’re playing the best football that you can play so we want them to be playing for us this weekend.
“But if they don’t back up, we’ve got the other players to come in and fill in for them.”
The Raiders are a woeful one-from-eight away from home this season and slumped to a 17-12 defeat against Wests Tigers at Campbelltown on Saturday night.
“We’re not getting carried away, I don’t think,” Goodwin said.
“We’re just taking it week by week and trying to win every game we go into.
“We’ll be doing that this week against the Raiders. They’ll be wanting to bounce back after their loss on the weekend.
“So we have to be ready to play on Friday night.”