14th March 2018
What a great new location we have in the new Perth Stadium. There was a buzz when a record Perth crowd turned up for the season opening double header. But Souths were not able to match the fitness of the Warriors, throw in a few referee howlers, and Souths struggled in the second half. It will be important to improve on this performance for our rookie coach as it will be a long season if we don't.
Congratultions to Adam Reynolds on reaching his 1000 first grade premiership points milestone. He becomes the third Rabbitoh to do so. But just as he was getting back into the season he suffered his second injury this season that's put him out for another month.
When Tyrell Fuimaono was trimmed from the first grade squad on Friday, it triggered a epic 9 hour dash from Perth to Auckland. he made it and ran out for the Bears but it wasn't enough.
It his debut for U20s and also a comeback game from a year off through injury, former NSW U16 representative player Josh Cook immediately stamped himself on the game when he scored 2 tries. Looking forward to watching him progress.
Jo Suaali is amking a name for himself in the U16s. He has been moved around the backline from Fullback to centre, but looks like he has found a home at 5/8. This week he bagged a hattrick of tries in their win.
Well the much mooted ARLC constitional change championed by our own Nick Pappas has hit a rocky road. The changes would have put two club representatives on the ARLC board as well as representatives from the QRL and NSWRL. But at the 11th hour we have 3 clubs signaled out opposing this change, since 14 out of 16 clubs needed to vote for the change it meant it couldn't be put forward. New commission chairman Peter Beattie is going to have his hands full managing the internal politics and distrust at club level that is holding back the growth in the game, nationally.
Round 1 - Stat Attack
Statistically the match started well but ended poor. Completion rates improved to 66% from 63% last week. Errors were steady at 14 again this week. We gave away 7 from 10 penalities last week. Souths Effective 1st tackle improved to a poor level of 40.0m from 45.0m last week. Our missed tackles improved to a poor level of 33 missed tackles from 43 last week. Opposition offloads dropped to 10 from 8 last week.
Looking at our left side defence - Jennings-Inglis-Walker-Sutton (1-1-2-4) steady at 8 missed tackles again this week. On the right side Kennar-Gagai-Reynolds-Crichton (2-3-1-7) was dropped to 13 from 12 missed tackles last week. Ruck defence TBurgess/GBurgess-Cook-Nicholls/Tatola-SBurgess/Murray (5-5-1-2) improved to 13 from 22 missed tackles last week.
Our go forward this week improved to 1557m from 1190m last week. George Burgess, Cook, Nicholls, Sutton, Johnston, Inglis, Gagai and Kennar made 10+m per run. Crichton, Sam Burgess, George Burgess, Tom Burgess, Johnston, Inglis, Gagai and Kennar making 100+m in the match. Defensively Cook was our best in the tackling raking up 45 tackles. Tom Burgess, Nicholls, Murray and Johnston not missing a tackle.