3rd Jun 2020
Defensive Concerns
It didn't take long for our defense to be exposed. While no one expected teams to play a full 8- minutes this week, we were very flat at the start of the game letting in 3 tries during the opening exchanges of each half. We can't let Top 4 teams get the jump on us so easily as we then have to try and play catch up football. While you can't win the comp early in the season you can lose one, and we now have a task ask down in Melbourrne this week.
Amone strong return
Tom Amone got a opportunity to step up into First Grade this week and was very impressive in his work rate and how how he hit the line. If he can keep this up he will be a very good bench addition.
Lower Grade workouts
One of the issues in 2020 is going to be lack of match fitness for our fringe first grade players. There are no reserve grade or U20 games being played so all of these players are just performing training. With NRL kicking off there are some match simulation sessions occuring in parrallel to the NRL games on the weekends.
New - 6 Again rule
Well we got to see the new covid rules on the weekend. Then two key changes were rge one referee and the 6 again rule. Between the two adjustments the game sped up considerabily. The 6 again rule has meant some offences that weren't considered a penalty are now being awarded with over 50 6 again calls being made across the weekend, meaning teams can continue their attack, while it looked seemless to the fans. But it was confusing when a 6 again call was being made. They introduced a buzzer to help identify this. One referee impact was also just as significant removing the decision delay that can occur when two referees communicate. On the flip side we are seeing the return of the umbrella defence and individual referee rule intepretations are becomeing more apparant. But teams who are good at the wrestle are still able to control the ruck. The test will come in two weeks when teams regain full fitness.
Round 3 - Stat Attack
Statistically it was a better game pre-covid. Completion improved to 86% from 71% last week. Errors improved to 6 from 12 last week. We gave away 4 penalties and 2 6-again calls from 5 last week. Souths Effective 1st tackle improved to a average level of 29.3m from 33.0m last week. Our missed tackles improved to a average level of 32 from 45 missed tackles last week. Opposition offloads improved to 7 from 10 last week.
Looking at our left side defence - Johnston-Burns-Dargan-Murray/Lowe (1-1-3-3) was improved at 8 from 14 missed tackles last week. On the right side DGagai-Graham-Reynolds-Su'A/Lowe (1-0-4-4) improved to 9 from 13 missed tackles last week week. Ruck defence Tatola/Nicholls-Cook-Burgess/Amone-Knight/Murray/Sironen (2-0-7-3) was improved to 12 from 14 missed tackles last week.
Our go forward was improved to 1630m from 1442m last week. Graham and Burns made 10+m per run. Burgess, Murray, Tatola, Burns, Gagai, Graham and Mitchell making 100+m in the match. Defensively Cook was our best in the tackling raking up 49 tackles. Cook, Nicholls and Graham didn't miss a tackle.
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