What a great start to the game. 3 tries in 10 minutes set the scene for a great South Sydney victory. But we again dropped for a period and let the Gold Coast back into the game just like last week. But then we controlled the second half very well. We are now equal fourth but with a lot more to do to make the finals.
Dylan Walker was great and bagged 4 tries in what was a great perormance immediaely after his senior representative debut. He was very unlucky not to have a 5th.
Tom has made a successful return back for the Bears from his ankle injury. He has now played two weeks and things are looking good for a future rturn to First Grade.
Congratulations to Zane Musgrove who has stepped up from U18 into the U20 team. He looks like havin ga strong future.
Our player development structure continues to struggle with a signfiicant gap developing between U20's and NSW Cup. A number of players from last years U20's squad are not developing to their potential when they go and play in the Ron Massey Cup. If anything they start going backwards in this part time league structure. Souths should look to keep these late developing players in the Souths system by putting a Souths Juniors U23's team in the Ron Massey Cup.
Statistically it was poor game even though we won easily. Completion rates were down at 71% but we made a very poor 13 errors and conceeded 8 penalties. Souths Effective 1st tackle for the match was poor at 42.1m. But missed tackles were execellent at only 7 missed tackles this week. We only allowed 4 opposition offloads.
Looking at our left side defence - Goodwin-Auva'a-Sutton-Turner (1-0-0-0) was great with 1 missed tackle. On the right side Johnston-Walker-Reynolds-Teo (1-0-1-0) was also great with only 2 missed tackles this week.
Our go forward was steady at 1325m. George Burgess lead the way in the forwards was the best making 10+m per run. With George and Sam Burgess making more that 100+m in the match. Defensively George Burgess was our best in the tackling raking up 38 tackles. With Inglis, Auva'a, Walker, Sutton, Turner, Te'o, Sam Burgess, McInnes, Clark, McQueeen and Luke Burgess not missing a tackle.