28th March 2018
After putting in a 40 minute performance and then a 60 minute performance, Souths put it together and played for a full 80 minutes, getting stronger as the game went on. It was performnce that stamped a strong message against a team who were on fire the week before. Now its very important to follow this up again this week in the annual Good Friday clash.
Robert Jennings is starting to settle into the left wing and with GI as a foil he made every post a winner this week getting 3 tries. Hoping many more are to come.
Josh Cook got the opportunity to make his reserve grade debut and made every post a winner putting in a huge defensive effort. Back to U20s this week while the Reserves have a bye. Its been experiance that he will build upon.
Our U18s SG Ball team bowed out with two weeks remaining after another poor performance. There is some work needed to rebuild our juniors, as we have been off the pace in recent years which will have a flow on effect into the higher grades.
Well it was a historic day at Redfern when our womens NSWRL team ran out onto the field at Redfern Oval. Big prop Eunice Grimes was a first try scorer when she powered over for the first try. While Maddie Studdon was our first goal scorer when she converted. Maddie put her stamp on the big win when she she booted 9 from 9 with 18 points. We will see how the team builds over the year. Now for a pre-game match with the Dogs at ANZ Stadium with the boys on Good Friday.
On a day when everyone was looking forwar to the launch of the Womens NRL competition, we saw one of the biggest stuff ups the NRL has done for many a year. The Competition was launch and after so much talk of there being 6 teams they suddenly reverted back only 4 teams. And what was a bigger shock was the omission of South Sydney and Cronulla two of the leading advocate clubs for Women's Rugby League. The social media backlash has been huge with petitions, media scathing articles and players, fans and admistrators critical of decision. Owner Russell Crowe has demanded answers, comments of geography and $50k guarantee being mentioned as the reasons for exclusion.
Round 3 - Stat Attack
Statistically it was a game we improved as the game went on Completion rates were steady at 78% compared to 79% last week. Errors increased to 11 from 9 last week. We gave away 11 penalties down from 11 penalities last week. Souths Effective 1st tackle was steady at a good level of 33.0m from 40.6m last week. Our missed tackles improved to a good level of 22 missed tackles from 40 last week. Opposition offloads increased to 12 from 10 last week.
Looking at our left side defence - Jennings-Inglis-Walker-Sutton/SBurgess (0-3-2-1) improved to 6 from 10 missed tackles last week. On the right side Kennar-Gagai-Doueihi-Crichton (0-3-2-3) was improved to 8 from 9 missed tackles last week. Ruck defence TBurgess/GBurgess-Cook-SBurgess/Nicholls/Tatola-Murray (2-3-0-1) improved to 6 from 19 missed tackles last week.
Our go forward this week was outstanding at 2006m from 1660m last week. Tom Burgess, Murray, Nicholls, George Burgess, Tatola, Johnston, Jennings and Doueihi made 10+m per run. Sam Burgess, Crichton, Tom Burgess, Murray, Johnston, Jennings, Inglis, Gagai, Kennar and Douihi making 100+m in the match. With Johnston and Jennings making 200+m. Defensively Cook was our best in the tackling raking up 43 tackles. Sutton, Nicholls, George Burgess, Tatola, Jennings and Kennar not missing a tackle.