24th May 2017
Another year and our bogey team Melbourne still remains a problem. We just can't seem to break the hoodoo against this team. It was a opportunity lost to catch up with the 8 after getting within 2 points. The equation continues to get tougher. 9 more wins required from 13 matches to make the finals and now for a tough 5 day turnaround.
In a tough match there was one shinning light in the chase from AJ to run down Vunivalu, one of the fastest in the game, and save a try.
Cameron Murray continues to impress at junior levels this week being named in the NSW U20s team and also named captain.
There has been a proposal put forward that U20s teams will act as a feeder to to NSW Premiership teams on match days. What this means is that Souths will no longer field a U20s team rather the North Sydney Bears would takeover our U20s operation playing home games at North Sydney Oval on Bears game day. Relegating NRL match days to single game events. The is a big concern that following this path South Sydney DRLFC are no longer fullfilling their obligation to promote the game of rugby league in the South Sydney district above the age of 18 with no senior district representative teams aligned with the NSWRL. The alignment with the Bears is helping the Bears, but they have a focus on redamission through the Gold Coast Bears rather than 19 to 23 year old player development for South Sydney NRL team which is what South Sydney needs. The district is already struggling with player numbers from Under 5s to A-Grade and this decision will not help instill pride in our district, by relagating the Souths Junior District to being a feeder for the North Sydney Bears. Players will now consider the alternate local feeder paths through the Roosters, Newtown-Cronulla, St George or Canterbury in a equal footing to the Bears feeder path. This can only harm Souths NRL team in the long term.
Round 11 - Stat Attack
Statistically a average game but once again our attack struggled against better defensive combinations. Completion rates improved but were still to a good level of 82% from 73% last week. Errors were steady at 12 again this week. We gave away 4 penalities again this week. Souths Effective 1st tackle dropped into a poor level of 37.2m from 27.7m last week. Our missed tackles dropped to a good level of 22 missed tackles from 14 last week. Opposition offloads improved to 5 from 6 last week. Best all year.
Looking at our left side defence - Johnston-Goodwin-Sutton-Turner/Fuimaono (0-2-1-2) improved to 5 from 6 last week. On the right side Gray-HHunt-Reynolds-Crichton (0-2-2-1) was dropped to 5 from 3 missed tackles last week. Ruck defence TBurgess/Clark-Farah/Cook-Rochow/Cherrington-SBurgess (2-2-0-1) improved to 5 from 14 missed tackles last week.
Our go forward this week dropped to 1429m from 1735m. Non-one made 10+m per run. Sam Burgess, Cricton, Tom Burgess, Musgrove, Walker and Goodwin making 100+m in the match. Defensively Crichton was our best in the tackling raking up 46 tackles. With Farah, Fuimaono, Cherrington, Johnston and Gray not missing a tackle.