Players start returning from injury and a good win up at Gosford has secured our Top 4 birth. Minor Premiership looks tough unless the Roosters drop a game.

Well done to Nathan Merritt who scored his 150th FG try. He now has 142 FG tries for Souths just shy of Benny Wearings record.

After a large number of changes the Bears run of wins came to end over in Windsor. But they are still well placed for a Top 4 finish.

A strong victory against Manly and our U20s team has almost qualified for the Top 8. They are progressing well as the season comes to a close.

There has been so much talk and lobbying around NRL expansion from 16 to 18 teams. But yet no decision on a timeline or where expansion will occur. There is speculation that we will expand once the new TV deal gets announced last year, but still no progress. Come on ARLC/NRL can we get a move on.

Statistically we improved again in a very tight contest between two Top 4 contenders. Completion rates improved to 82% from 69% last week. With errors dropping to 8 from 11 and penalties improved to 5 from 6 last week. Souths Effective 1st tackle for the match improved to a average level of 32.6m from 34.2m last week. And missed tackles dropped to a outstanding level of 9 missed tackles from 15 last week. With opposition offloads to improved to 3 after allowing 11 last week.

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

Our go forward dropped to 1125m this week, our second worst all year. No one making 10+m per run. With George Burgess, Lima and Luke making more that 100+m in the match. Defensively McQueen was our best in the tackling raking up 27 tackles. With Luke, Asotasi, Te'o, Lima, Keary, George Burgess, Clark, Walker, Farrell and Reynolds not missing a tackle.