Maybe it's just me, but the prospect of South Sydney winning the NRL premiership, a prospect which looms ever larger as they fit their high-priced purchases with cohesive teamwork, makes me feel like puking.

This is a team I marched for, when they were kicked out, because I liked the Bunnies and opposed the economic rationalism that left no place for them in a reduced league. We'd lost Norths and Newtown and would soon see two more foundation clubs, Balmain and Wests, lose their separate identities in a merger. Redfern was where we drew the line in the sand.

When Souths were reinstated, I went to their first game. They were scorched by the Roosters at the SFS, but it didn't matter. Even the hollowed-out faces of Rabbitohs fans were smiling.

Souths fans are a hard-bitten lot because they've been bitten hard: by defeat, by luck. They won't believe they've won the premiership until they've gone to bed and woken up the next day and read the papers. They permit themselves, in lapsed moments, to hope and dream, but never to believe. That's why, as a neutral, you've got to love them.

Then along came Maximus. I don't know Russell Crowe from Robin Hood but I make no excuses for the following ignorant character assassination. This, after all, is what Rusty's beloved tribalism is all about: unleashing irrational passions.

Russell Crowe is a grand fellow, for he can achieve the impossible. Is it possible for a single man to make a whole club detestable? Russell can, and did. I don't know if it's the boring, droning pomposity. I don't know if it's the mannered ordinary-bloke thing. I don't know if it's the wife-hugging in the corporate box whenever Souths score, or the careful absences when they're getting caned. I don't know if it's the Book of Whatever It Is. I don't know if it's Pamela Anderson cajoled into wearing Rabbitohs caps. I don't know if it's his mate the league-loving Sydney denizen Peter Holmes a Court. I don't know if it was the specious pretexts to dump Jason Taylor and Joe Galuvao. I don't know if it's just the up-himself, big-man-in-town wankery.

But whatever it is, Russell's achieved it. He's made Souths a team to barrack against.

Of course, it would have been fine if they'd kept losing. But Russell did a lot to talk top-quality players like Sam Burgess, Roy Asotasi and Dave Taylor into coming to Souths, and good on him for that. (They just want to hope that, unlike Galuvao and Adam McDougall and some others, they're not tomorrow's discarded boiled bunnies.) Whatever manner he's used, and the salary cap auditor has no doubt been through Souths' files with his microscope, Russell has built a team to reckon with. They have a top bloke for a coach in Johnny Lang, and a few retreads who are reaching their potential alongside the stars. They've discarded cheergirls and pokies, and constructed their success on a growing base of membership. Good on them for that. In many ways Souths are the club of the future, and a team to admire.

But it doesn't sit right, this glam and twizzle. This is Souths, damn it. The only mortgage they ever held was on nostalgia. They're the premiership champions of yesteryear, the upholders of the purity of inner-city poverty, the burnt-out shell of league's rust-belt past. So much easier to love when they were losers.