22nd July 2015
Another great night out at the SCG. Sitting up the Churchill Stand and seeing another great game at great venue. But one important reminder about playing at the SCG was the impact of the cricket pitch in the rain. Its something that is never a issue at venues like the SFS of ANZ Stadium. But it was great to see our team coming back from injury and combinations gelling at the right end of the season. Still another 3 wins to qualify for the finals and 5 wins out of 8 for a Top 4 finish. The next 3 weeks are vital for us to set ourselves up for the seasons end.
It was great to see Sutto back in form and tearing up the opposition before he needed to switch back to hooker in the second half.
Kyke Turner had a big game in reserve grade and after a hesitant start played 70 min and was strong late in the game.
In a major disappointment our U20s team needed to win last week to make the Top 8 but lost to a 12 team last placed Dragons team and this has ended their Top 8 asperations.
This week the NRL announced it will reduce the interchange from 10 to 8. My main concern is that this announcement is not coming from the RLIF based upon NRL and ESL recommendations. We need to get back to the playing International Rules RL, where games played from U16s in your local competition all the way to Morocco and Russia and up to the NRL are played under the same rules. As a example today the international interchnge rules are 12 not even 10.
Statistically Round 19 stats showed a big improvement this week. Completion rates improved to 84% this week. Errors dropped to 5 from 10 last week. We gave away 5 penalities this week compared to11 last week. Souths Effective 1st tackle improved to a good level at 26.4m from 40.4m last week. Our second half was much improved this week at 19.0m our second best all year. Our missed tackles were steady at 16 missed tackles again week. Opposition offloads dropped to 7 this week from 12 last week.
Looking at our left side defence - AGray-Goodwin-Keary-Sutton (2-1-1-1) increased this week to 5 from 3 missed tackles last week. On the right side Johnston-DWalker-Reynolds-Stewart (0-1-2-1) were steady at 4 missed tackles this week.
Our go forward increased this week to 1410m this week. McInnes, Sutton and Inglis lead the way in making 10+m per hitup. With Tom Burgess, Inglis and Dylan Walker making more that 100+m in the match. Only one forward making 100+m is a concern however. Defensively George Burgess again was our best in the tackling raking up 42 tackles. With George Burgess, Grant, Lowe, Tom Burgess, Inglis and Johnston not missing a tackle.
Signing off for another week - the midweek Cyber View from the Hill