9th Apr 2025
4 out of 5 What a Start to Season
South Sydney had to dig deep this week after the match was severly disrupted by injury reschuffles. We finished the game with a centre pairing of Duncan and Arrow, after losing both of our starting halves in the first half. It shows the versitility and dedication of the 2025 squad as they did not throw in the towel like they had done many times in 2024 when the opposition scored 2 tries to take the lead. Instead the fought back in a quality final 20 minutes where it was combination of first the young guns making the key breakthrough and then the experiance of superstar Latrell Mitchell to win the game. That is 4 wins from 5 for our first five rounds, our best start to a season since 2021. Now off to Perth to play the Cowboys.
Hampstring Disasters
Everyone is asking what is happing at training? It is not just bad luck that 3 players Humpheys, Walker and Ravalawa go down with Hamstring injuries in the same game. The calculated risk of playing a injured Humphreys back fired when he went off after 5 minutes. Walker was not much better when he also went off at halftime. While Ravalawa was a genuine game day injury after getting injured in a desperate cover tackle. The club needs to review what is the root cause with things like warm up and cool down processes at training and game days under the spot light.
Jye Gray Dally M Leader
Jye Gray has been performing so well in 2025 he forced the hand of coach Wayne Bennett to keep him as custodian with the return of Mitchell. This week he has jumped out to be a 5 point clear leader in the NRL Dally M's. His running from the back and energy when the team struggling helped bring the boys home on the weekend, as he was jogging on the spot for critical try that brought South Sydney back into the game. He is now a vital member of the team moving forward, and considered the best player over the first 5 rounds in the NRL.
Mihinui rewarded
A new face in recent weeks has been the arrival of U21s prop Devante Mihinui from Manly. He has done extremely well in his first two weeks at the club, scoring atry and strong consistent running. This week he is rewarded with a call up into Reserve Grade.
Waqa and Geary doubles
Our left side was on the fire in U21s with our backline causing havoc on the weekend. First it was Waqa who scored off a great backline move only to get injured. He scored again before leaving the field. Then Geary a makeshift center stepped up to cover and found himself also on the end of another two tries, as our U21 won their first game of the season.
Alaverez Quad Tries
Man of the weekend must go to Taj Alavarez who as part of U19 leathal left scored 4 tries, taking his season tally to 11 tries so far. He will be a player to watch in the finals, as South Sydney look to build on the 2nd placed finish.
U17s Qualify with Strong Win
In a another strong second half, South Sydney finished the regular junior season with a win to qualify for the finals in 7th place. Taukafa was the beneficiary off some good backline plays to score a double. A lot of work todo as they try to make a impact on the finals aftre 3 narrow losses.
Girls Season ends
2025 was a poor season once again for our girl junior teams. In girls U19s we ended the year with only one win. April Chappell was our top try scorer with 4 tries. While McGregor was our top point scorer with 28 points. In the girls U17s we finished the year without a win in last position. With Victoria Loleni our top try scorer with 2 tries and she was our top point scorer with 8 points. A lot of work required to rebuild our girls junior teams.
NRL looking to buying into ESL
The latest speculation this week has been the push for the NRL to buy into the ESL (English Super League) with talk of the NRL agreeing to present a 33% purchase proposal to the ARL Commission. The NRL wants to takeover the running of the game if the proposal goes ahead and build upon the growth achieved here in the Pacific, the success of the Vegas ESL game and window to setup a international broadcast deal. There is a lot of speculation on what could eventuate. From a proposed 10 team competition with two team in France and NRL having control on what teams participate. It is reported that South Sydney CEO Blake Solly (a former ESL CEO) and former Souths CEO Shane Richardson (a former Gateshead CEO) are behind the move. There is speculation also of South Sydney getting involved in running a Super League team in the new model. There has been talk for over 12 months on the NRL getting involved, with the first concrete moves now underway. We wait with interest on the next steps.
Round 5 - Stat Attack
Statistically it was a good game. Completions improved to 86% from 82% last week. Errors improved to 7 from 10 last week. We gave away 6 penalties and 1 6-again calls from 8 last week. Souths Effective 1st tackle improved to a good level of 27.7m from 33.4m last week. Our missed tackles dropped to a very poor level of 40 from 37 last week. Opposition offloads was steady at 16 again this week.
Looking at our left side defence - Tass-Mitchell/Duncan-Walker/Mitchell-Koloamatangi (0-6-5-2) was dropped to 13 from 8 missed tackles last week. On the right side Ravalawa/Wighton-Wighton/Arrow-Humphreys/Sullivan-Arrow/Tatola (1-3-5-3) improved to 12 from 13 missed tackles last week. Ruck defence Keppie/Havili-Mamouzelos-Tatola/Moale-Hubner/Duncan (4-4-2-6) dropped to 16 from 13 missed tackles last week.
Our go forward dropped to 1595m from 1641m last week. With our props slightly dropping but still at a average level of 412m compared to 416m last week. Sullivan made 10+m per run. Koloamatangi, Tatola, Keppie, J.Gray and Tass made 100+m in the match. J.Gray made over 200+m. Defensively Hubner was our best in the tackling raking up 37 tackles. Tass and Humphreys didn't miss a tackle.
Rd03 Cronulla Ende L 12-27 Rd04 Penrith StAu W 28-18 Rd05 Syd Rstrs StAu W 20-14
Rd03 Brisbane LngS L 16-26 Rd04 Canberra NQSt W 30-20 Rd05 Penrith WSS W 22-18
2022 Rd24 StAu W 20-10 15,264 G.Sutton 2023 Rd17 StAu L 6-31 11,262 G.Sutton 2024 Rd11 LngS L 22-28 50,708 P.Gough
First Grade Pe 6A SB OR SO
2023 Rd05 Melbourne StAu L 10-18 11,239 Referee 6-5 7-2 - - - :
2024 Rd08 Melbourne MRSt L 20-54 25,149 Referee 4-7 4-3 1 1 - :
2024 Rd23 Melbourne StAu L 16-28 8,973 Referee 5-6 2-3 - 2 - :
M W D L : PeW PeD PeL PeF PeA : 6AW 6AD 6AL 6AF 6AA : SB OR SO
v Nth Qld never
© 2025 SSR Almanac / HOME / ABBREVIATIONS / RETURN