We led for much of the game but could never finish off the opposition and when one error went their way they took the lead and we could not get back into the game without our SOO stars. A number of players were making their return from injury this week. Walker, George Burgess and Keary. It ended up being too many changes as the side faded towards the end of the game when Reynolds was injured.

Good to see Luke Keary return back to first grade after 16 weeks on the side line. The injury he sustained was a serious one so we need to monitor his progress carefully.

Adam Reynolds on the weekend broke Jason Taylors record for the most consecutive games where he has scored points. Taylor's old record was 68 games. Adam now holds the record with 69 games with more to come. Well done !

On the weekend players Tevita Cottrell, Nat Butcher, John Olive, Liam Coleman, Hiamona Hiroti on their NSW Schoolboys selections.

SOO continues to wreck havoc on the NRL competition. Whether its 34 players unavailable on representative duty, players suspended, a volume of players injured or players who cannot back up for club matches. We seriously need to revisit the representative period and reduce its impact on club football.

Statistically this was a very poor game with some key statistics being very poor and after dropping last week they dropped even more this week. Completion rates dropped to our second worst this season at 62% our error count way up at 18 and we conceeded 10 penalties. Souths Effective 1st tackle for the match dropped again to 43.1m. Missed tackles dropped to 20 missed tackles this week. And our opposition offloads increased to 9.

Looking at our left side defence - Merritt-Auvaa-Keary-Sutton (0-0-0-1) was was great at 1 missed tackle from 6 missed tackles last week. On the right side Tuqiri-Walker-Reynolds-Turner (1-1-2-0) again dropped from 2 to 4 missed tackles this week.

Our go forward however was much better at 1419m. With Johnston, Merritt, Tuqiri, Reynolds and Koroisau all making 10+m per run. With Sam and George Burgess, Johnston and Walker making more that 100+m in the match. Defensively Sam Burgess was our best in the tackling raking up 53 tackles. With Koroisau, Turner, Merritt, Auva'a and Keary not missing a tackle.

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