We came off the bye but our preperation was impacted with a delayed plane trip. This resulted in a sluggish start that the Cowboys took advantage of. While we dominated the remaining 70 minutes we could overcome giving them a 14 point start. But away from that we need to improve our ability to seal the game as were only two points behind with 15 minutes to go.

After a State of Origin period Greg Inglis came back and had a string game trying to lift Souths and scorin ga try to get us back into the game.

Souths continue to blood our U18 squad in U20's with Brock Gray a propr and younger brother of Aaron Gray making his debut thsi week.

Former Bulldogs prop John Kite has moved across to teh Bears in recent weeks and is now starting on the bench.

The final 6 rounds of the premiership were released this week. As a fan I am extremely disappointed that we have only 2 games all year on Saturday or Sunday at our home venue ANZ Stadium. We are now going to have 5 Thursday night games and 2 Monday night games which are impossible for regional supporters or families to attend.

Statistically a slow start impacted our game as we had to do a mountain of defence. But this match looked more like a Top 4 hit out. Completion rates improved to 84% our error count dropped to 8 but we conceeded 8 penalties. Souths Effective 1st tackle for the match dropped to 35.5m. Missed tackles dropped to 16 missed tackles this week. And our opposition offloads increased to 4.

Looking at our left side defence - Merritt-Goodwin-Sutton-McQueen/S.Burgess (0-1-3-2) was dropped to 6 from 3 missed tackles. On the right side Johnston-Turner-Reynolds-Teo (1-0-0-1) again improved from 4 to 2 missed tackles this week.

Our go forward dropped again back to 1281m. Inglis leading the way in the go forward all making 10+m per run. With Inglis, Sam and Luke Burgess making more that 100+m in the match. Defensively Sam Burgess was our best in the tackling raking up 45 tackles. With Tyrrell, Koroisau, Lowe, Merritt, Turner and Reynolds not missing a tackle.

Signing off for another week - the midweek Cyber View from the Hill