19th July 2017
The trip to Cairns has not been a good one for the Rabbitohs team lately. Thats is now 3 losses fom the last three years. Playing our home game in the Cowboys in their backyard backfired on the field, once again. It was one of the most poor performances of the team for the year, as our season is heading south rapidly. We are now on knifes edge with 7 more wins required from 7 matches to make the finals.
It was good to see GI making good pogress off the field in his recovery from his knee injury. Its still a while offbut its good to see his smiling and moving freely.
After spending a few weeks on the sideline its been good to see Tasi return in some powerful running displays on the lfet wing for the Bears. He made 200m on the weekend against Mounties after a similar strong effort the week before against Wyong.
Our u20s boys have turned their season around after going 8 weekends without a loss. They are now 2 points out of the 8 with a strong chance of pushing their way in. But a big test this weekend against the leading team of the comp.
Taking games away from home while proving a financial incentive, is starting to hurt where it matters on the competition table. Choosing to play the Cowboys in their backyard of Cairns has proven to be a dud move by the club. With a rare Sunday afternoon game being taken away from the clubs loyal fans is a turn off for season ticketed members.
Round 19 - Stat Attack
Statistically another very poor effort. Completion rates dropped to a very poor level of 68% from 78% last week. Errors were increased to 14 from 10 last week. We gave away 8 penalities again this week. Souths Effective 1st tackle dropped to a horrid level of 46.6m from 35.5m last week. With the first half being our worst all year. Our missed tackles dropped to a horrid level of 40 missed tackles from 28 last week. Our 2nd worst all year. Opposition offloads improved to 4 from 5 last week.
Looking at our left side defence - Johnston-Goodwin-Sutton-TFuimaono/SBurgess (2-0-1-4) steady at 7 again this week. On the right side Burns-Jennings-Reynolds-Crichton (0-0-4-6) was steady at 10 missed tackles again this week. Ruck defence TBurgess/Musgrove-Farah-Tyrrell/GBurgess/Clark-SBurgess/Murray (3-4-11-3) dropped to 21 from 11 missed tackles last week.
Our go forward this week dropped to 1288m from 1536m. 2nd worst all year. Tom Burgess, George Burgess, Farah, Musgrove, Murray and Reynolds made 10+m per run. Sam Burgess, Crichton, Tom Burgess, George Burgess and Jennings making 100+m in the match. Defensively Farah was our best in the tackling raking up 42 tackles. Goodwin, Jennings and Burns not missing a tackle.