The Cowboys put on a spirited performance for their former coach and cost us the lead in the competition. We now need to regroup for our 3rd week travelling the nation down in Melbourne.

Injury to our regular five-eighth John Sutton has opened the door for Luke Keary to play a bigger part in our games going forward. Your chance is now.

In a tight contest the Bears have made it 4 wins in a row and qualified for the Top 8. They continue to put pressure on the first grade squad which is great to see.

Another try and Aaron Gray is mounting up the points as his impressive run in U20s continues.

As the ESL gears up to celebrate their annual Challenge Cup, Australia continues to miss out out on this opportunity of a knockout competition of its own. What was once started as the Amco Cup disappeared, but England have found away to keep it going by playing it during the pre-season and then in dedicated weekends. Australia could do the same during playing 3 rounds before the season starts and then playing semi-finals and final during SOO period.

Statistically it was a poor performance as we were behind 30 nil before we got a few consolation tries. Completion rates dropped to 78% from 80% last week. With errors steady at 8 and penalties improved to 7 from 8 last week. Souths Effective 1st tackle for the match dropped to a very poor level of 40.2m from 31.1m last week, on the back of second worst second half of 46.1m. And missed tackles dropped to a average level of 25 missed tackles from 12 last week. We improved opposition offloads to improved to 7 after allowing 8 last week.

Looking at our left side defence - King-Goodwin-Sutton/Keary-McQueen (4-0-3-3) dropped to 10 from 1 missed tackles last week. On the right side Farrell-Walker-Reynolds-Teo (2-2-2-0) was dropped to 6 from 4 missed tackles last week.

Our go forward was dropped back to 1254m this week. Luke, George Burgess, Tom Burgess, King and Merritt lead the go forward making 10+m per run. With King, Sam Burgess, Te'o and George Burgess making more that 100+m in the match. Defensively Luke was our best in the tackling raking up 38 tackles. With Te'o, Asotasi, Lima, Tom Burgess and Goodwin not missing a tackle.