8th August 2018
What a forward dominate display. Souths lead by Sam Burgess just monstered the Melbourne pack. Melbournes strength was the forwards and Souths just steamrolled them up the middle. This then oppened the way for the creative players to weave the majic in one of Souths greatest ever wins against the reigning premiers. We now hold a slender lead in the race for the minor premiership and now for another block buster against 110 year arch rivals Eastern Suburbs. It is another huge 1 v 3 match aloss willpush us back to 3rd and undo all of the good work from last week. We still need 1 more win for a Top 4 finish.
Cookiee !!!
It was a battle of the old verses the new Smith v Cook. Smith had just recently retired from representative football and Cook was stamping himself as the person to takeover the reigns as Australian hooker. It was such a dominate display after the forwards layed the platform. When he scored what can only be decribed as the try of the year, he also sent Slater into retirement.
Bears stay in the hunt for Finals
Finally the Bears are starting to look like the team we expected for most of the year as the forwards returned from injury. It was a strong win over Wyong that nowputs them 2 points out of the 8 with 3 rounds to play. But the loss of Doeuihi and Jennings will test their outside backs.
Girls into the Grand Final
Souths girls got back on track with a great game after the NRL stepped in to stop the disruptions from the W-NRL. They powered to a comprehensive victory and now setup a grand final showdown with Mounties at ANZ Stadium. It is geat to see the girls playing at ANZ Stadium in the Women In League round. Now for the girls to bring the trophy home to Redfern.
Immortals a nice touch
The NRL has done a lot right of late but relaunch of the Immortal brand has been a nice touch. Inducting 6 new people into the Hall of Fame and adding all 100 players of the century has been very good. Then adding 3 pre-war immortals when recommended by the historians that ALL should be there not just one was well received. So glad rugby league also did something for Mal.
Round 21 - Stat Attack
Statistically a very good game, on the back out a oustanding second half. Completion dropped to 79% from 84% last week. Errors dropped to 10 from 9 last week. We gave away 6 penalties down from 10 last week. Souths Effective 1st tackle improved to a very good level of 23.3m from 32.4m last week. Another strong second half of 17.4m second best all year. Our missed tackles dropped to a average level of 30 missed tackles from 26 last week. Opposition offloads increased to 17 from 5 last week. Second worst all year.
Looking at our left side defence - Hunt-Doueihi/Burns-Walker-Sutton (0-2-2-2) was improved to 6 from 12 missed tackles last week. On the right side Graham-Gagai-Reynolds-Crichton (0-5-2-0) was improved to 7 from 8 missed tackles last week. Ruck defence TBurgess/Tatola-Cook-GBurgess/Clark-SBurgess/Murray (0-1-4-9) was was dropped to 14 from 5 missed tackles last week.
Our go forward improved to 1594m from 1436m last week. Cook, Gagai and Graham made 10+m per run. Sam Burgess, Cook,Tom Burgess, George Burgess, Crichton, Sutton, Graham and Hunt making 100+m in the match. With Sam Burgess topping 200+m. Defensively Cook was our best in the tackling raking up 39 tackles. Tom Burgess, Crichton, Tatola, Hunt, Doueihi and Graham didn't miss a tackle.