16th September 2015
Souths have bowed out of their back to back 2015 campaign in first grade after suffering their 4th defeat in a row, the first time under Maguire. In a poor middle 40 minute period they once agin let in a number of unanswered points and went for 164 minutes without scoring a point, before we put on a few late tries. But overall 2015 will go down a successful year bringing hom teh World Club Challenge and th NRL 9's and making the finals for 4 successive years.
While Issac Luke career ended on the weekend, we remember one of little champions who was a once in a lifetime dynamic hooker and his combination with John Sutton will be long remembered.
He never reached the heights that had once done by Glenn Stewart this week also departed Souths as he now heads overseas. Thanks Gifty for your contributions this year.
Congratulations to Alex Johnston and Cody Walker who with 17 tries each are our top try scorers in first grade and reserve grade, respectively.
With the inclusion of the PNG Hunters in the QLD Cup this year the PNG team to play the Australian PM XIII will be represented by local PNG players rather than a PNG nationalteam. We now need to also revisit this match and bring into the post season internationals and play a full Australia v PNG test match as a warm up match for the main 4 nations, just live NZ do with Tonga.
Statistically the Preliminary Semi-Final was another poor day in the office to end our season. Completion rates dropped to 66% this week. Errors increased to 16 from 11 last week. We gave away 9 penalities again this week. Souths Effective 1st tackle dropped again to a attroticous level at 50.9m from 43.7m last week. With the second half our worst half of the season at 56.2m. Our missed tackles were dropped to 43 missed tackles from 61 last week. Opposition offloads decreased to 5 this week from 12 last week.
Looking at our left side defence - Goodwin-Auvaa-Keary-McQueen (0-4-4-3) was decreased to 11 from 20 missed tackles last week. On the right side Johnston-DWalker-Reynolds-Grevsmuhl (1-4-3-3) were decreased to 11 missed tackles from 21 last week.
Our go forward dropped this week to 1141m this week. Only Inglis made 10+m per hitup. With Grevsmuhl, Tom Burgess, Inglis and Goodwin making more that 100+m in the match. Defensively McInnes and Grant were our best in the tackling raking up 39 tackles. With Tyrrell and Goodwin not missing a tackle.
Signing off for another week - the midweek Cyber View from the Hill