24th August 2016
In one of our best performances of the year against high flying Cronulla we ground out a great 12-6 defensive display in the wet. One can only wonder where has this been all season.
Its come as no surprise that our return to form has come with the inclusion of Damien Cook. With our forward pack now back at full strength Cook is finally able to weave his majic at dummy half.
After two loses the Bears find themselves in a playoff match this week for 8th position hoping one of two other results go their way.
In a high quality game against Top 6 club Cronulla our U20s team almost pulled off a last minute draw.
Playing our last home game in the dreaded Monday Night Football time slot in the 3rd last round really was a let down. We need to work with the NRL to be smarter in the scheduling of these games. There seems to be a ongoing lack of care for the fans from NRL HQ. At least MNF is also now over.
Round 24 - Stat Attack
Statistically another Top 4 performance Completion rates dropped to 83% from 91% this week. Errors were dropped to 8 from 3 last week. We gave away 4 penalities compared to 5 last week. Souths Effective 1st tackle improved to a good level of 29.5m from 32.5m last week. Our second best all year. Our missed tackles improved to 16 missed tackles from 21 last week. Our third best all year. Opposition offloads were dropped to 16 from 7 last week.
Looking at our left side defence -JBurgess-AGray-Walker-Sutton/Crichton (0-0-0-2) was steady at 2 missed tackles again this week. On the right side Johnston-HHunt-Reynolds/Sutton-Turner (1-1-1-2) improved to 5 from 10 missed tackles last week.
Our go forward this week improved to 1468m. Sutton, George Burgess, Johnston and Walker made 10+m per run. Sam Burgess, Tom Burgess, Sutton, Aaron Gray, Hymel Hunt, Johnston, Walker and Inglis making 100+m in the match. Defensively Sam Burgess was our best in the tackling raking up 49 tackles. With Cook, Sutton, Brown, Aaron Gray, Joe Burgess and Inglis not missing a tackle.