16th March 2016
That was a blitz against a below par Newcastle team. In the lst 3 meetings againsts the Knights we have now scored 150 points. But add to that the two wins by big margins is a record start of Souths in their 109 year history. Also in all Newcastle matches Maguire coached Souths teams have never lost. Our great start continues, competittion leaders, 2nd in the club championship. But it is still early days as we know from last year. With 11 more wins to qualify for the finals.
Aaron Gray put off season dramas to bed by have a great game and scoring a hat trick of tries.
After a hesitatnt game last week, this week Cody Walker looked like a seasoned first grader. Making his debut at 26 years of age. As a left foot kicker he is a rare commodity.
After two strong agme Toby has been rewarded and called up to make his Reserve Grade debut this weekend.
After a first half where they were lucky to be only 2 behind, they put in a great defensive effort and won the second half 16-0 to claw their way back into the top 8.
The NRL lost the plot this week in its touching referee crackdown. There are a few issues that need to be addressed for this to work successfully. One a referee can't be touched. Its black and white. Any referee contact flows all the way down to grass roots and junior football, as was seen when a junior player punched a referee. Two contract conduct is not a appropriate charge. We need a new Referee Contact judicary charge item, where Grade 1 gets 200 points through to Grade 5 1000 points. And finally any Referee related charges need to be heard by a referee judicary panel not a panel of ex-players. They way players got off this week instead of the old 4 week charge was embarassing for the game.
Round 2 - Stat Attack
Statistically was another good performance but there re signs that need improvement. Completion rates dropped to 78% from 90% this week. Errors increased to 10 from 4 this week. We gave away 9 penalities compared to 11 this week. Souths Effective 1st tackle dropped to a poor level at 38.2m from 31.3m last week. With a very poor second half of 47.2m once again this week. Our missed tackles were improved to 15 missed tackles from 24 last week. Opposition offloads dropped to 7 from 8 last week.
Looking at our left side defence - AGray-Goodwin-CWalker-KTurner (0-2-0-0) decreased to 2 from 8 missed tackles last week. On the right side Johnston-HHunt-Keary-Carter (2-0-2-0) improved to 4 missed tackles from 7 last week.
Our go forward improved this week to 1628m. George Burgess, Damian Cook, Aaron Gray, Johnston and Keary made 10+m per hitup. With George Burgess, Sam Burgess, Tyrrell, Brown, Aaron Gray and Goodwin making more that 100+m in the match. Defensively KyleTurner was our best in the tackling raking up 28 tackles. With McInnes, Carter, Kyle Turner, Clark, Brown, Auva'a, Aaron Gray, Hymel Hunt and Cody Walker not missing a tackle.