After the Rabbitohs flogged his Newcastle side 50-10 in Cairns in early August, supercoach Bennett cast doubt on whether this would be the year Souths, and the style of football they were employing, would finally break their 43-year premiership drought.

When asked if Souths could win the title after putting the Knights to the sword, Bennett replied: ‘‘Well, it didn’t work for them last year in the end’’.

Against Canterbury in Sunday’s grand final at ANZ Stadium, that assertion will be put to the ultimate test.

But captain John Sutton said Souths couldn’t concentrate on proving Bennett, who has won seven titles himself since the Rabbitohs last tasted premiership glory, wrong this week.

‘‘Not really, we are just concentrating on ourselves,’’ Sutton said.

‘‘That is all the media stuff outside of our team. We are just worried about what we can do and just focus on ourselves.

‘‘We don’t worry about that. We are not worrying about what has and hasn’t been said.’’

Considered one of the greatest minds ever involved with rugby league, Bennett also asserted it was the simple cart-it-up-the-middle style of play that had let Souths down during the past two seasons - and could do so again in 2014.

‘‘Souths aren’t going to change,’’ Bennett said.

‘‘There wasn’t one of us in that change room who didn’t know at any stage what they were going to throw at us and how they were going to do it.

‘‘That’s their challenge. They do it every week the same way. If a team’s good enough to stand up to it, it puts them under pressure. We couldn’t stand up to them ... another day we might have.

‘‘There’s not a coach in the NRL who doesn’t know how they’re going to play.’’

But Sutton was confident it was exactly with that forward-dominated approach to rugby league that Souths could win the 2014 premiership.

‘‘I don’t think we are playing a different style of footy really. I think we are still playing how we have been the last couple of years,’’ Sutton said.

‘‘We just run hard up the middle with our big boys and try and get the ball to Greggy [Greg Inglis] and Lote [Tuqiri] and AJ [Alex Johnston] on the flanks.

‘‘So not much has changed over the last couple of years.’’