2021 - The Cyber View from the Hill

21st July 2021

Ugly Win After Origin

It was a ugly win on the back of our team going into lockdown on the Gold Coast. We had 3 players backing up from the midweek Origin camp. The game started with Souths on first scoring twice and missing 3 try scoring opportunities. But they a run of dropped ball and concussions to Graham, Knight and Host disrupted our rythm and allowed the opposition to get back into game and gain confidence. We regained our compsure soon after half time, but we were in a tough contest for the remaining 40 minutes, with our fringe players getting a good workout. We still hold outright 3rd and need 1 more win to make the semi's. It is now off to the Sunshine Coast to play the Warriors who have a tough forward pack.

Nicholls Celebrates 100 Games

Mark Nicholls has significantly improved with his movement to starting prop. He is making it his own with a hugh work rate early in the game. His efforts were rewarded on the weekend as he celebrated his 100th game in fine style by scoring the match winning try.

Koloamatangi Meter Eater

The "koala" continues to improve in 2021. He made second row his own early in the season, forcing his way into the starting lineup and then being called into the NSW SOO extended squad. He is one of the best players for post contact meters in the game, ie powering through the line before getting pulled down in a tackle. The last few weeks have seen him moving into prop for middle of the game. This week he ran for a oustanding 238m. It wont't be long before he gets called up for higher honours.

AJ Another Double

Another 2 tries by AJ, thats now 15 tries in 6 games. He has now moved into outright 3rd on the South Sydney alltime season try scorers list with 24 for the season and leads the NRL try scorer leader board. But a hamstring injury has suddenly brought all of that to a halt. Lets hope he returns sooner rather than later.

10m 6-Again Rule Need to Change

6-Again rule is copping a lot of critisim this season with unprecended scorelines. The number of games with high winning margins has jumped by around 20% and everything is pointing to way teams are being effected by the 6-again 10m rule change. While the effect was to designed to stop the wrestle, the 10m variation has reduced the penalty for offside play. On the weekend we saw a classic example of a team giving away a professional 6-again when they ran 5m offside during scrums on multiple occasions. We have also seen a increase in ruck infringements not getting penalised as teams test the ability of the referee to watch all espects of the game. This includes a return of one side of the field being offside so that play goes to the opposite side and a return of umbrella defensive patterns. I beleive we need to revert back to a 10m offside penalty and look to re-introduce the second referee to referee the ruck.

Round 18 - Stat Attack

Statistically it was a average game. Completion dropped to 78% from 81% last week. Errors dropped to 10 from 8 last week. We gave away 3 penalties and 1 6-again calls from 4 last week. Souths Effective 1st tackle dropped to a good level of 24.4m from 22.5m last week. Our missed tackles improved to a oustanding level of 10 from 22 last week. Opposition offloads improved to 7 from 8 last week.

Looking at our left side defence - Johnston/Burns-Gagai-Walker-Koloamatangi/Host (1-1-0-1) improved to 3 from 6 missed tackles last week. On the right side Milne-Graham/Burns/Murray-Reynolds-SuA (0-2-1-0) improved to 3 from 5 missed tackles last week. Ruck defence Nicholls/Knight/Koloamatangi-DCook-Burgess/Mago-Murray/Nicholls (0-0-3-0) improved to 3 from 11 missed tackles last week.

Our go forward improved to 1820m from 1985m last week. Koloamatangi, Nicholls, Burgess, Host, Taaffe, Burns and Johnston made 10+m per run. Koloamatangi, Nicholls, Burgess, Murray, Taaffe, Burns and Milne made 100+m in the match. With Koloamatangi making 200+m for the game. Defensively Murray was our best in the tackling raking up 38 tackles. Nicholls, Cook, Su'A, Host, Mago, Knight, Walker, Milne and Johnston didn't miss a tackle.

Rabbitohs Radio - Weekly Segment

Boys chat to Jo O'Callaghan, remember Robert Simpkins and preview the Warriors game.