16th August 2017
Youth and some late season form from the Burgess twins has helped Souths string 2 wins from 2 games. Our young guns have brought some new found entusiam into the team, and it is starting rub off. But it is interesting watching the grand finalists from 2014 both struggling only 3 seasons later.
Alex Johnston continues to collect meat pies. He now leads the NRL try scorers and starting to find his feet in the fullback role.
After the loss on the wekend the Bears look like they will miss the Top 4 but make the Top 8. Miski collected another double and has been very solid on the wing. He reminds me of Josh Mansour in how he runs.
The 146kg 7ft giant Jordan Mailata from the Bankstown Bulls, continues to impess in his short damaging burst. It has taken him a while to get used to the playing with his size. But as Souths improve his fitness levels he is becoming the equivalent of a man-child in U20s with players hanging off him like a U6s game when he uns. This weekhe bagged two tries. He is work in progress.
The NRL continue to struggle with crowds and Thursday Night Football has been another fizzer. Fans are being tuned off from attending games and Thursday Night Football just adds to the problems. While better than Monday Night Football in a working week, people continue to stay away and watch the game on TV at home. Plus the match clashes with kids sporting commitments and their school weeks. The sudden drop in attendances by kids is a alarming trend the NRL needs to address. We hae gone from 83% of matches on a Sunday afternoon to now only 25%. Rugby League has become a "occasional" Sunday event rather than a religious event for fans. But if we kill off the fans there will be no TV money in future years.
Round 23 - Stat Attack
Statistically it was a average level performance. Completion rates improved to a good level of 82% from 81% last week. Errors were dropped to 14 from 8 last week. We gave away 6 penalities again this week. Souths Effective 1st tackle improved to a average level of 31.0m from 31.4m last week. Our missed tackles improved to a good level of 23 missed tackles from 48 last week. Opposition offloads increased to 19 from 11 last week. Our equal worst all year.
Looking at our left side defence - Goodwin-TFuimaono-Walker-Sutton (0-2-2-0) improved to 4 from 15 missed tackles last week. On the right side Graham-AGray-Reynolds-SBurgess/Crichton (1-2-2-0) was improved to 5 from 13 missed tackles last week. Ruck defence TBurgess/GBurgess-Cook/Farah-Musgrove/SBurgess/Turner-Murray (2-4-4-2) was improved to 12 from 17 missed tackles last week.
Our go forward this week dropped to 1737m from 1810m. Tom Burgess, Musgrove, George Burgess, Crichton, Murray, Sam Burgess, Turner, Johnston, Goodwin, Tyrell Fuimaono and Aaron Gray made 10+m per run. Tom Burgess, Crichton, Musgrove, George Burgess, Johnston, Goodwin, Aaron Gray and Tyrrell Fuimaono making 100+m in the match. Defensively Murray was our best in the tackling raking up 39 tackles. Tom Burgess, Sutton, Sam Burgess, Crichton, Turner and Goodwin not missing a tackle.