11th March 2015
After a quality offseason our boys were back focused on 2015. It was a very impressive hit out against the Broncos up in Queensland were by around the 30 min mark we already had the better of them. Our new style was very evident with attacking options of Sutton / Keary on the left and Reynolds / Stewart on the right keeping teh opposition guessing. Are quest for Back-To-Back is on trackbut there are still a long way to go before we qualify for the semi-finals. A step up in class this week against co-favourites the Roosters in a season defining game.
I am loving what I am seeing from Tom Burgess this season. After two disrupted season starts in 2013 and 2014, 2015 is looking like his breakout year. He is already out shining his twin brother George in the stats area and it will only need him to score a try or two before the press starts to notice.
Two strong debuts over the weekend saw Stewart become our 1106th and Grevsmuhl become our 1107th Rabbitoh FG players.
Stephano Taukafa has a very good eary hit out for the Bears this week scoring two tries. He looks like he will be a solid backup player.
There was a lot of talk about the impact of the new rule intreptations, which requires all 3 tacklers to fall off the tackle togetehr rather than peal off one at a time. We saw some addition dummy half running but this could be attributed to the heat more than the new rules.
The other adjustment occured within the referees where there will be a head referee who wears a arm band and controls over 80% of the game at the ruck, while the second referee is now known as the assistant referee. This has seen less change in the game style or rule interpretations when we cutover from one referee to another.
Statistically Round 1 it was a good first hit out with all statistics were a bit up and down this week in the heat. Missed tackles were very good with only 13 team missed tackles. Completion rates were poor at 70% and with errors also in the poor range at 12 and we gave away 10 penalties with Lowe giving away 4. Souths Effective 1st tackle for the match good at 30.2m. We made 18 missed tackles which was also very good and only allowed one opposition offloads.
Looking at our left side defence - Johnston-Goodwin-Keary-Sutton (2-2-1-1) increased against better opposition with 6 from 4 missed tackles this week. On the right side Reddy-Walker-Reynolds-Stewart (0-1-1-2) increased to 4 from 3 missed tackles this week.
Our go forward was a much improved 1394m in the warm Brisbane conditions. Johnston, Keary, George Burgess and McQueen lead the way in the forwards was the best making 10+m per hitup. With Tom Burgess, Inglis, Grevsmuhl, Tyrrell, George Burgess and Johnston making more that 100+m in the match. Defensively Stewart was our best in the tackling raking up 25 tackles. With Inglis, Reddy, George Burgess, Luke, Lowe, Clark, Grevsmuhl and Tom Burgess not missing a tackle.
Signing off for another week - the midweek Cyber View from the Hill