23rd August 2017
Another win, and that makes it 3 wins from 3 matches. But it was a tough slog before a good second half turned around the match. It was the first time Issac Luke had returned to ANZ Stadium against Souths, and it was good to see our former grand final hero acknowledge the crowd.
Alex Johnston bagged another 3 tries to race to the lead of the NRL try scorers list with 22. But as he scored his third he tore his hammy, and is out for the season. He has scored 22 tries from 22 games this season.
After a disrupted year with injury Jack Gosiewski made his retunr to first grade on the back of a number of good performances with Bears. He made every moment a winner in a powerful display.
Premiership Records tumbled in in the 13 try scoing spree at Redfern Oval by our U20s team. 68-10 was the biggest ever NYC win by Souths. It was also the biggest ever U20s senior or junior format win. And it was the highest ever score by a Souths senior Third Grade / U23s / U20s team ever.
In a initiative to address the growing issue of junior participation in league ranks. The NSWRL has chosen to introduce 21 weight / age divisions. This will allow smaller kids to remain in the game while they grow, instead of having to try and tackle significantly larger kids. It was also mean larger kids will learn better football skills rather than just monstering the opposition.
Round 24 - Stat Attack
Statistically it was a good performance. Completion rates were steady at 82% again this week. Errors were improved to 8 from 14 last week. We gave away 6 penalities again this week. Souths Effective 1st tackle improved to a good level of 27.5m from 31.0m last week. Our missed tackles improved to a good level of 20 missed tackles from 23 last week. Opposition offloads dropped to 2 from 19 last week. Our best all year.
Looking at our left side defence - Goodwin-TFuimaono-Walker-Sutton (1-2-4-1) dropped to 8 from 4 missed tackles last week. On the right side Graham-AGray-Reynolds-Crichton (1-1-0-1) was improved to 3 from 5 missed tackles last week. Ruck defence TBurgess/GBurgess-Cook/Farah-Musgrove/Turner/Gosiewski-Murray (3-3-0-2) was improved to 8 from 12 missed tackles last week.
Our go forward this week was steady at 1719m from 1737m last week. Tom Burgess, Crichton, Murray, Gosiewski, Cook, Farah, Johnston, Goodwin and Tyrell Fuimaono made 10+m per run. Tom Burgess, Crichton, Murray, Cook, Johnston, Goodwin and Tyrell Fuimaono making 100+m in the match. With Johnston make 200+m in the match. Defensively Murray was our best in the tackling raking up 47 tackles. Musgrove, George Burgess, Turner, Gosiewski and Reynolds not missing a tackle.