10th August 2016
The club came within 2 minutes of breaking their Melbourne hoodoo. But a ver dubious referee call allowed Melbourne one final chance and they took it. But it was a much better performance for the team to almost beat the compeition leaders after the disaster of last week. But we have now lost 9 in a row.
With the return of bigger forward pack and Cook and dummy half, what also retruned was Reynolds kicking game as he setup two great tries off cross field kicks.
Cameron Murray continues to show promise. Playing his third reserve grade game at the young gae of 18.
Just as a few come back we lose another with Liam Coleman going in for groin surgery.
Its great to see the Jarryd Hayne back in the NRL after his stint with the NFL. But how the NRL bypassed the June 30 transfer so that NRL owned club the Gold Coast Titans could sign him up left a bitter taste in many supporters mouths. Is there a conflict of interest at the moment? But away from that, what stops a team suddenly signing up a player from another sport for a finals stint and then returning back to that sport?
Round 22 - Stat Attack
Statistically a much better peformance. Completion rates improved to 80% from 69% this week. Errors were improved to 7 from 11 last week. We gave away 13 penalities compared to 4 last week. Two late penalties cost us the game. Souths Effective 1st tackle improved to a poor level of 38.6m from 52.0m last week. Our missed tackles improved to 25 missed tackles from 28 last week. Opposition offloads increased to 14 from 12 last week.
Looking at our left side defence -JBurgess-AGray-Walker-Sutton (0-0-0-0) was perfect with 0 from 15 missed tackles last week. On the right side Johnston-HHunt-Reynolds-Turner (3-7-2-2) dropped to 14 from 6 missed tackles last week.
Our go forward this week improved to 1455m. Sutton, George Burgess, Cook, Clark, Inglis and Joe Burgess made 10+m per run. Sam Burgess, Sutton, Tom Burgess, Joe Burgess, Inglis and Aaron Gray making 100+m in the match. Defensively Sam Burgess was our best in the tackling raking up 52 tackles. With George Burgess, Sutton, Clark, Joe Burgess, Aaron Gray and Walker not missing a tackle.