12th August 2015
It was our 3rd 5 day turn around for 2015 and we have lost all 3. This is in vast contrast to last two years. A long season looks like it is taking its toll on players recovery this year. But we are still another one win to qualify for the finals and 3 wins out of 4 for a Top 4 finish and in a 3 way battle. Now for a game against our recent nemisis team the North Queensland Cowboys up in Townsville.
Its been a long 23 rounds but grand final hero Kirisome Auva'a finally makes a welcome return to the FG squad after being named in a extended squad this week.
All of the hard work after the coaching restructure is finally starting to show rewards with our RG affiliate team the North Sydney Bears who have now won 3 games in a row and pushed their way into the Top 8. Now for the run into the finals.
Another two more tries on the weekend and Cody Walker has moved into second place on the NSW Cup try scoring list. He is proving to be a point scoing wizard after starting the year late.
The ARLC strategic committee looks like they may revert U20s back into a 9 round State League based juniors format. Just like U18s and U16s is today and the old Flegg used to be before it was promoted into seniors format. This will reduce costs at U20s level for clubs and refocus players on earning thier way through tougher compeitions like the QLD or NSW Cup. Will this be a good move? The jury is still out, as the bigger issue being that there was no National RG structure. National U20s was serving its purpose but failing in the next step up.
Statistically Round 22 stats dropped this week back to normal levels. Completion rates improved to 75% this week. Errors increased to 13 from 10 last week. We gave away 10 penalities this week compared to 6 last week. Souths Effective 1st tackle dropped back to a horrid level at 45.0m from 35.6m last week. Our worst all year. Our missed tackles were increased to 34 missed tackles from 27 last week. Is very poor. Opposition offloads decreased to 8 this week from 21 last week.
Looking at our left side defence - AGray-Goodwin-Keary-Sutton (2-0-2-0) decreased this week to 4 from 8 missed tackles last week. On the right side Johnston-DWalker-Reynolds-Stewart (1-7-4-2) were increased to 14 missed tackles from 8 last week.
Our go forward decreased this week to 1242m this week. Luke, Clark and Gray lead the way in making 10+m per hitup. With George Burgess, Inglis, Aaron Gray and Johnston making more that 100+m in the match. Only one forward making 100+m again this week. Defensively Stewart was our best in the tackling raking up 46 tackles. With Sutton, Clark and Goodwin not missing a tackle.
Signing off for another week - the midweek Cyber View from the Hill