4th April 2018
What a comeback. It was reminisant of the famous Roosters win inhow the team scored two tries within a few minutes to go from 6 down to a stron 4 point win. The way Sutton took controling the back end of the game was evident. We have now inched ou way back into the Top 8 for first time since Round 3 2017. As we now head to a take on the high flying Dragons.
Cameron Murray continues to go from strength to strength. He has already pushed Sam out of lock and his defence work rate is second to none. He also is doing his share in attack with regular busts and the try he scored to win the game will go down in history.
It was simple hitup 10m from the try line when three defeender ambushed Sam. One defender came in from the side and ducked hished into Sam's arm carrying the ball. But the new trend in 2018 of a soccer style act was appauling. It forced Sam to be puton report for using a elbow. But what was unbeleivable was the pue incosistency of the MRC that allow a numbe of similiar incidents to not be charged. So when Souths contested te charge they rubbed Sam out for 2 games even though everyone knowledgeable RL commentator and fan knew it was not a suspension.
Its come donw to this Souths must beat Balmain and either Illawarra or Wests must lose for Souths to make the Top 8 in U16s. All eyes will be at Leichhardt in the sudden death match.A drawis not good enough for us due to our poor differential.
Well it was billed a big clash with top of table teams Souths and Canterbury faced off. But it didnt take long before the Souths girls put their stamp on the game. Meanwhile over at Cronulla they scored a century. With all of the controversey they match this week has a extra special meaning.
The fallout and backlash from the W-NRL decision to exclude Souths and Cronulla continues to grow. We have over 8,000 people signing petitions to correct this issue. But the NRL have chosen a non-response to both football clubs who both have been scathing in their response. Butthe deciison to onlyallow 4 licences ratherthan 6 is extremely baffling. With Geography being the only reason put forward. I feel for the Souths and Cronulla girls who have signed NRL elite contracts as they will now be forced into a draft for their services, and being told "you do as we say" or you cant play SOO or for Australia. Also a 4 team comp is a cop out when Souths and Cronulla both co-leaders in teh W-NSWRL premiership and winnrs of the 2016 and 2017 premierships are treated so un-fairly. I expect a lot more in the space over the coming months.
Round 4 - Stat Attack
Statistically we dropped in quality once again in the heat. Completion rates dropped to 73% from 78% last week. Errors increased to 14 from 11 last week. We gave away 10 penalties down from 11 penalities last week. Souths Effective 1st tackle dropped back to a poor level of 38.5m from 33.0m last week. Our missed tackles dropped but still a good level of 23 missed tackles from 22 last week. Opposition offloads dropped to 10 from 12 last week.
Looking at our left side defence - Jennings-Inglis-Walker-Sutton/Nicholls (0-0-3-2) improved to 5 from 6 missed tackles last week. On the right side Gagai-Hunt-Doueihi-Crichton (1-1-2-0) was improved to 4 from 8 missed tackles last week. Ruck defence TBurgess/GBurgess-Cook-SBurgess/Tatola-Murray/SBurgess (3-3-3-3) dropped to 12 from 6 missed tackles last week.
Our go forward this week dropped back to 1465m from 2006m last week. Sam Burgess, Cook, Nicholls and Gagai made 10+m per run. Sam Burgess, Tom Burgess, Sutton, Crichton, Gagai and Inglis making 100+m in the match. Defensively Cook was our best in the tackling raking up 44 tackles. Cook, Sutton, Tatola, Jennings and Inglis not missing a tackle.