2022 - The Cyber View from the Hill

23rd March 2022

Comeback not quite enough

So close yet again so far. It took a positional switch for the team to start finding its combinations once again. And once they did, they put enourmous pressure on Melbourne. This resulted is three tries on the end of our backlines. But as for the whole game, errors proved costly and a error in golden point period allowed Melbourne the chance to steal the game, once again. There was significant improvement last week and a win is just around the corner. Now for our 114 year rivarly game.

Mitchell immediate impact

In his first game back on the paddock after almost 6 months, it wasn't a surprise to see some early rustiness. But he had a big hand as Souths stormed home setting up a great right side try. Then with 40 secons on the clock he kicked one of the great 2 point fieldgoals to send the game into golden point. Looking forward to having him back on the field once again.

Knight steady return

Liam Knight has a careful return from his recent concussions and off season surgery, as he came on off the bench in resrve grade. He had a solid game in his first full game since Round 17 last year. Hope all goes well in his steay return back to first grade.

Karapani double

Karapani won't spend long un U21s this year. In his U21s appearance he was part of a late surge scoring two tries. He has made a impact in the trials and is now showing his ability on the field in the pathways. Another good yound player to keep a eye on.

Rule adjustment impact

We have now had 2 full rounds under the revised rules, and the return of the penalty within the 40m zone has had a immediate impact. No longer can teams give away illegal ruck or offside infringements with little penalty. The effect was so dramatic, we have seen the end of "blowouts" results with the 2 round winning margin average now only 9 points. This is the closest it has been since 2010. But we did see Melbourne do repeated professional 6-again fouls in the final 20 minutes, or not packing the scrum to try and gain the advantage. They could easily have had more than two sin bins during the game. It will be interesting to see how referees crack down on this sort of play going forward.

Rabbitohs TV - Weekly Segment

The boys recap Round 2

Round 2 - Stat Attack

Statistically it was a average game. Completions dropped to 61% from 66% last week. Errors dropped to 19 from 14 last week. Our worst in 8 seasons. We gave away 4 penalties and 2 6-again calls from 7 last week. Souths Effective 1st tackle improved to a average level of 33.3m from 39.1m last week. Our missed tackles were steady at a good level of 24 again this week. Opposition offloads dropped to 16 from 12 last week. Our worst in 2 years.

Looking at our left side defence - Johnston-Paulo/Milne-Walker-Arrow/Host (2-0-4-1) dropped to 7 from 6 missed tackles last week. On the right side Milne/Paulo-Graham-Ilias-Koloamatangi/Arrow (1-3-1-1) improved to 6 from 10 missed tackles last week. Ruck defence Tatola/Arrow/Moale-DCook/Havili-Nicholls/Burgess-Havili/Murray (3-4-2-2) dropped to 11 from 7 missed tackles last week.

Our go forward improved to 1916m from 1580m last week. Arrow, Tatola, Moale, Johnston and L.Mitchell made 10+m per run. Nicholls, Tatola, Arrow, Murray, Graham, Paulo, Walker, Johnston, Milne and Ilias made 100+m in the match. Defensively D.Cook was our best in the tackling raking up 53 tackles. Koloamatangi, Host, Burgess, Paulo and Mitchell didn't miss a tackle.

News This Week

ChSh  St Geo-Ill Mudg L 10-16
Rd01  Brisbane   LngS L  4-11
Rd02  Melbourne  MRSt L 14-15

Trial Wests-Tig  Gosf L  8-16
Rd01  Newcastle  SCG  L  6-20
Rd02  Manly      SCG  W 26-12

2019 Rd01  SCG  W 26-16 24,527 G.Atkins/G.Badger
2019 Rd25  StAu W 16-10 20,093 A.Klien/C.Sutton
2019 MPSF  SCG  L  6-30 30,370 G.Sutton/A.Gee
2020 Rd03  WSS  L 12-28      0 A.Klein
2020 Rd20  StAu W 60-8   7.985 G.Sutton
2021 Rd03  StAu W 26-16 22,838 A.Klien
2021 Rd24  LngS W 54-12  5,136 A.Klien