Souths recorded their first shutout performance since re-instatement and in 15 years when they held Cronulla to nil in what looked more like a wet eather game in the heavy dew of Shark Park. The win puts Souths Souths back into the Top 8 but we need to maintain a better that 50% record if we are to make the semifinals this year.
Sam continues to make a habit of scoring a Shark Park scoring his fourth try from four outings.
Our reserver grade team teh North Sydney BEars continue to have a poor season. While thereare signs of improvement they are struggling to finish off and win games. Only winning 2 games all year.
Our U20's team are on the improve this year winning our last 3 matches and getting back into the Top 8.
Only 8,137 people turned up to watch Souths play on Monday night a very poor crowd for a match featuring two Sydney teams. But the biggest contributer was scheduling. With State of Origin being played on Wednesday and no Sydney match on Sunday why was this game not played at 2pm on Sunday. NRL needs to be smarter in how they schedule club football during the State of Origin period.
Statistically it was a similar game to last week but the key factor was our ability to control the game much better Completion rates were better at 75% but we made a poor 12 errors and conceeded only 5 penalties. Souths Effective 1st tackle for the match was vastly improved at 33.5m but was runnin gat 24.2m for 70 min when we dropped off our intensity. Missed tackles tackles improved to 12 missed tackles this week. And we allowed reduced our opposition offloads back to 11.
Looking at our left side defence - Reddy-Auva'a-Sutton-Turner (0-2-0-0) was improved significatntly to 2 missed tackles. On the right side Johnston-Walker-Reynolds-SBurgess (0-2-2-1) was dropped to 5 missed tackles this week.
Our go forward improved to 1382m. George Burgess, Walker, Auva'a lead the way in the go forward all making 10+m per run. With George, Sam Burgess, Auva'a and Walker making more that 100+m in the match. Defensively Ben Lowe was our best in the tackling raking up 50 tackles. With Merritt, Reddy, Johnston, Tyrrell, Turner, McInnes and Picker not missing a tackle.