3rd March 2021
Mudgee Slaughter
After a long 4 hour drive we ended up at the nice little town of Mudgee. There were Rabbitoh banners up and down the main street and lots of fans in the pubs. While there needs to be some improvement in the entry prootocols to the ground we found our seat on the hill to enjoy our first big game of the season. And boy the boys did not disappoint. It became almost a point a minute as the team Slaughtered the Dragons with six first half tries. Souths mean business in 2021 and are geared up for a big season. Now a week off before we head down to Melbourne.
Mitchell is back!
Well that didn't last long, instantly Mitchell stole the show with 3 try assists and a meat pie. The way he stood and delivered a pass ala Artie Beetson style was pure quality for Walkers first try. And every time he chimmed into the back line he had the defense guessing. Hold onto your hats boys and girls and enjoy the ride.
Manning bags another hattrick
Our SG Ball team remain undefeated and came up against a strong Newcastle outfit and our backline kicked into action. And once again Evan Manning was the guy to benefit as he scored another hattrick of tries to take his tally to 6 in 4 games.
Rule Changes
This weekend we got our first chance to see the new rules in action. Reynolds tried a long range 55m 2 point fieldgoal attempt just before half time, which will be a signal that more team will try this tactic on the last set of six of a half more often. Other change was the enforced 2 minutes of a player leaving the field if they try and stop play. This occurred in the Matts game and a try instantly resulted against a 12 man defence. The other change that occured more often was the play-the-ball instead of a scrum when a ball goes over the sideline. This kept the ball in play for a reported extra 5 minutes, but one tactic I disliked was the desire to play-the-ball midfield under the old scrum rules as a delaying tactic. This needs to revert back to a simple 10m from teh sideline play the ball.
Charity Shield - Stat Attack
Statistically it was a very strong game. Completion improved to 90% from 75% last year. Errors improved to 5 from 12 last year. We gave away 2 penalties and 2 6-again calls from 4 last year. Souths Effective 1st tackle was improved to a the good level of 26.7m from 31.7m last year Our missed tackles improved to a average level of 25 from 40 last year Opposition offloads dropped to 12 from 4 last week.
Looking at our left side defence - Johnston/Mansour-Gagai/Moga-Walker/Dargan-Host/Arrow (0-1-4-0) improved to 5 from 10 missed tackles last week. On the right side Paulo-Graham/Marsters-Reynolds/Hawkins-Koloamatangi/Arrow (3-1-4-3) steady at 11 again this week. Ruck defence Tatola/Nicholls-DCook/Marshall/JCook-Burgess/Mago-Murray/Sele (2-2-3-1) improved to 8 from 14 missed tackles last year
Our go forward was improved to 1790m from 1602m last week. Host, Sele, Mitchell, Johnston, Walker, Reynolds and Moga made 10+m per run. Host, Nicholls, Burgess, Moga, Walker and Murray making 100+m in the match. Defensively Murray was our best in the tackling raking up 24 tackles. Burgess, DCook, Tatola, Host, Murray, Graham, Johnston, Marshall, Taaffe, MAnsour and Moga didn't miss a tackle.
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