21st February 2018
Well after so long Souths finally walked onto the field. There was a real World Club Series feel about the game this week with 5,000 English fans decending on ANZ Stadium. The pubs were overtaken by the poms and the singing was in full swing. Souths field a experimental team as is usually the case for their first trial, lead by long serving clubman Jason Clark. They tried a few combinations and let a few young players having a run. But in taking on Wigan the 2016 World Club Champions, Souths got a chance to for run and came away with solid win. Now for the Charity Shield.
A number of players got their first chance in club colours on the weekend, and a standout was Mark Nichols who lead the stats in his front row role. He will be a welcome addition along with yound gun Tatola.
After 3 ACL's, Conor Tracey could have easily walked away from the game. But on the weekend he made a long awaited stint in first grade. And he didn't let anyone down, he running kicking and passing game were spot on, as he played a hort 40 min stint. Someone to keep a eyeon as the season progresses.
Manowski and Gale's leading from the fron was a please aspect of what ended up being a poor afternoon for the U18s and U16s. U18s lead for most of the match on the snatch defeat from the jaws for victory.
Its official there will be a Rabbitohs NSWRL womens team. It will be interesting t osee where this ends up over the coming weeks. But we are expected to build upon the succss of the Redfern All Black premiership win last year, so things are looking health at this stage.
One even that is flying under the radar is the Commonwealth Games Rugby League 9s this weekend, being played by U23 players. It was good see this semi-world cup tyle event being held and a large number of nations attending. On the Souths front it was good to see Ky Rodwell make the team.
Wigan Trial - Stat Attack
Statistically it was trial style performance, with a lot of work to do, to be ready for a NRL game. Completion rates dropped to 73% from 76% last year. Errors were increased to 13 from 11 last year. We gave away 7 from 5 penalities last year. Souths Effective 1st tackle improved to a good level of 28.9m fom 31.4m last year. Our missed tackles improved to a good level of 20 missed tackles from 23 last year. Opposition offloads dropped to 8 from 10 last year.
Looking at our left side defence - Graham/Gagan-HHunt-Farah/Doueihi-Britt/Talakai (1-0-4-3) dropped to 8 from 2 missed tackles last year. On the right side Kennar-Jennings-Doueihi/Tracey-Fuimaono/Taavale (1-2-2-0) was improved to 5 from 10 missed tackles last year. Ruck defence TBurgess/GBurgess-Cook/Farah-Nicholls/Tatola-Clark (2-2-1-1) was improved to 6 from 9 missed tackles last year.
Our go forward this week was improved to 1821m from 1505m last week. Nicholls, Fuimaono, Tatola, Taavale, Cook, Britt made 10+m per run. Nicholls, TBurgess, Fuimaono, Cook, Hunt and Doueihi making 100+m in the match. Defensively Clark was our best in the tackling raking up 27 tackles. Farah, George Burgess, Sutton, Clark, Talakai, Jennings and Graham not missing a tackle.