7th March 2018
Off to the lovely town of Mudgee. It was clear night and Souths players turned out in force. It was clear Souths are going to play a game where ball ovement is more evident. It was interesting feature that Cook dropped back into the back line acting as a extra half in plays. The team hung on to retain the Charity Shield for the 6th succesive time. Now off to the new Perth Stadium for the firt round of the season.
In a surprise move, Greg Inglis made his long awaited return to the football paddock. He lead the team out and played centre. What was very encourgaing was how well his knee was holding up. There was no need for knee support, and he was running freely. His stint was for a short 20 minutes, but early signs are very encouraging.
In a game that was better suited to sitting in your car on the hill in wet, Hiroti was very solid at the back. He has started the year very well chiming in very well at fullback as he continues his development. Watch this space.
Up in Redcliffe in a wet weekend rugby league held its Commonwealth Games 9s. It was played in U23s format with Ky Rodwell doing his part. He continues to be one of our stars stepping up from U18s midyear last year. We will watch with interest how he develops.
Tatum Allchin continues to do her part in our U18 girls match. She has now racked up 6 tries in 3 games. She is one of our stars in the womens U18 format.
One of the most important in the world of rugby league occurred during the off season. It was the formal recognition of by the GAISF (formally Sports Accord) of rugby league as a sport, in obtaining "observer" status. It has been over 5 years of lobbying to get to this stage, with the WRU being a major opponent. Doesn't sound like much but this now paves the way for emerging RL countries to obtain local government funding and insurance. It should also end the situations like Vichy France in WWII, more recently in South Africa, and the arrest of a Rugby League official in UAE, where Rugby Union still 123 years later continue to try and stop the expansion of Rugby League and claim RL is just a rebel game. With their latest tactic being the setting up of a World RL organisation in opposition to the RLIF for a few disgruntled Greek and Italian former players and a small group in Pakistan. Rugby League now has 2 years to move to the full approval stage.
Charity Shield - Stat Attack
Statistically it was poor game overall, with 3 no tries. Completion rates dropped to 63% from 73% last week. Errors were increased to 14 from 13 last week. We gave away 10 from 7 penalities last week. Souths Effective 1st tackle dropped to a very poor level of 45.0m from 28.9m last week. Our missed tackles dropped to a horrid level of 43 missed tackles from 20 last week. Opposition offloads were steady at 8 again this week.
Looking at our left side defence - Jennings/Gagan-Inglis/HHunt-Walker-Sutton/Britt (1-1-3-3) steady at 8 missed tackles again this week. On the right side Kennar-Gagai/Burns-Doueihi-Fuimaono/Crichton (1-6-2-3) was dropped to 12 from 5 missed tackles last week. Ruck defence TBurgess/GBurgess-Cook/Farah-Nicholls/Tatola/Musgrove-SBurgess/Clark (8-2-8-4) dropped to 22 from 6 missed tackles last week.
Our go forward this week was dropped to 1190m from 1821m last week. Cook, TBurgess, Sutton, Johnston, Jennings and Walker made 10+m per run. Cook and Gagai making 100+m in the match. Defensively Cook was our best in the tackling raking up 32 tackles. Inglis and Gagan not missing a tackle.