It is safe to say that he probably has the Rookie of the Year winner wrapped up, and Adam Reynolds has shown why that is the case – with the young halfback stepping up to guide the South Sydney Rabbitohs to a 34-14 win over Newcastle.
Despite that however, and some uncanny plays, Reynolds believes that he is still plying his trade as a player in the NRL, and is still after his improvement in his overall game.
“Every week I’m learning something new about different teams, the way games go and how to find my feet in the games and when to do stuff,” Reynolds said.
“We’ve got a big side and it makes the job easier, just roll forward and let us stick to our structures and kick to the corners and back our defence to really grind teams away.”
With Souths now putting teams to the sword, Michael Maguire has said that this is only the beginning of Souths surge to the finals.
“I think he’s got a career of improving,” Maguire said.
“If you look at the (Johnathan) Thurstons and the (Cooper) Cronks and those guys, they’ve developed over years and years.
“I think Reyno has started his journey as a rugby league player and he’s excelling at that at the moment.
“If he keeps going the way he’s going I reckon there’s some great things coming.”
For Newcastle, coach Wayne Bennett admitted something that was rather obvious – with the supercoach highlighting the Bunnies physical pack as too big and strong.
“They were just too big and too strong for us – too good,” he said.
There was however a decision that Bennett did not agree with, when winger Akuila Uate was stripped in-goal of the ball, resulting in a try to Chris McQueen.
“The referees have called (Nathan Merritt) offside at the time on ground,” said Bennett, with the try awarded by the video referee.
“As the kick was made he called offside so Aku assumed he was offside, realised he didn’t really have to play at the ball and he’d get the penalty.
“Obviously the ball was stripped from him.”