2023 - The Cyber View from the Hill

12th Jul 2023

Baby Bunnies Struggle

Going into the game with 11 regular first grade missing from injury or representative duty, was always going to be tough day in any NRL contest. While we got off to a good start, our defensive issues across the club was exposed once again when we let in 4 tries in the next 50 minutes. Before we staged a late comeback in the last 20 odd minutes. Our woese have not just this weeke but for the last 7 weeks we have lost 4, won 2 and a bye games, which is the equal worst of the NRL during that same period across the origin period. The positive is seeing lower grade combinations finally stepping up, which will help the team as we move into the back third of the season. Still 4 more wins to qualify for the finals. And week off before we go on the road during the womens soccer world cup.

Taffee scores a double

It was breakout game for Blake Taaffe who had a big game at fullback scoring two tries with his pace, as the benefit of playing outside his former team meates Illias and Mamouzelos showed during the back end of the game. This was probably his best game for the club since staring as halfback in the Jersey Flegg Grand Final. With Latrell Mitchell due back soon, he is pushing to stay in the 17.

Zac Makelim is a name you won't hear much about, but on the weekend the Coff Harbour junior, brought down by Sam Burgess earlier in the year, answered a SOS as we aere down on troops. Makelim a hooker came on and impressed in the second half darting and weaving and scoring a double to boot. Good luck in his future opportunitie.

Macey almost wins it

Aaron Macey is name I expect to hear more of in the weeks ahead. He is another player with great pace, which was evident in how he scored from a set play from the scrum, and made many half breaks. He would have wrapped up a victory in U21s with a break down the sideline, but only to see it pulled back for a prior forward pass. He also filled very well at fullback while Towns was in the sin bin. Looking forward to watching his progress.

State of Origin Standalone weekends must return

Another six weekends of the NRL season impacted by State of Origin period comes to a close this weekend, and it is evident that returning to 3 split rounds does cut it. We need to find a better solution to the mid season period. The simplist answer is to remove the two unnessary two byes for what is basically split rounds and play 2 representative weekends. Everyone the return of this so that representative games can be focused. I would like to see two representative fortnights with the return of the City v Country fixtures seperated by 2 NRL rounds. No matter what something has to change.

Round 19 - Stat Attack

Statistically it was a horrid game. Completions dropped to 71% from 92% last week. Errors dropped to 12 from 3 last week. We gave away 6 penalties and 2 6-again calls from 11 last week. Souths Effective 1st tackle was dropped to a very poor level of 40.5m from 31.4m last week. Our missed tackles dropped to a horrid level of 40 from 28 last week. Opposition offloads dropped to 17 from 3 last week. Our second worst all season.

Looking at our left side defence - Johnston-Kennar/Tass-Hawkins-Tass/Knight (2-2-5-4) dropped to 13 from 9 last week. On the right side Munro-Milne/Kennar-Ilias-Lovett (3-3-2-4) was dropped to 12 from 6 missed tackles last week. Ruck defence Tatola/Havilli-Havili/Mamouzelos-Burgess/Moale-SMitchell/Knight/Duncan (1-4-6-4) dropped to 15 from 13 missed tackles last week.

Our go forward improved to 1622m from 1571m last week. Tatola, Havili, Duncan, Knight, Moale, Taaffe and Munro made 10+m per run. Tatola, Duncan, Havili, Burgess, Knight, Taaffe, Munro and Milne made 100+m in the match. Defensively Tass was our best in the tackling raking up 33 tackles. Havili, Duncan and Taaffe didn't miss a tackle.

News This Week