2024 - The Cyber View from the Hill

20th Mar 2024

80 min Effort Required

With both teams feeling the effects of the round the world travels, and games being played back on a normal size field, both teams played below par. Souths however continue to struggle to defend when put under pressure. After a poor first half, we got back into game after halftime but by the 50th minute we had fallen away. We need to improve our 80 minute performace. After all of the travels finally a game back in Sydney at the local against our arch rivals. Lets see how the effects of our travels against a team who decided to not fly via Fiji goes.

Hawkins Halfback Opportunity

Dean Hawkins, finally gets another chance at halfback this weekend. The 2023 NSW Cup player of the year. While he has been called into first grade a few times, its always been in a unfamiliar role at 5/8. As a dominate kicker in NSW Cup he will be called upon to help guide the team this week. Good luck Footy Dean.

U21s Fiji Adventure

Our U21 team, had a very different experiance on the weekend. They were the first South Sydney team to play on Fijian soil as we took on the new Fiji Silktails team who have stepped up from Ron Massey Cup into Jersey Flegg U21s. They have a goal to move setup a NSW Cup team in the future. It was a tough match which we won narrowly, but what a experiance for all involved.

Kuscu another double

Yasin Kuscu is making a name for himself in the U19s with another strong performance in our 40 point demolition on the weekend. That is now 4 tries in 2 games after he scored another double on the weekend. I am looking forward to seeing more of hm as he progresses.

U17s and W-U19s bow out

Our U17s struggled again this week after a promising start to season. Our differential suggest we should be in the hunt, but you need to win games too. So after another loss they have bowed out of finals contention. The same has occurred for our Womens U19s team after the results over the weekend.

Blocker Rule Change Impact

One rule adjustment, which is more in line with enforcing a existing sheppard rule, is the marker blocker rule. Last year we saw in many cases a defending dummy half being impeeded when trying to put pressure on a kicker when 2 players "block" his path near the play the ball. In 2024 we are now see this illegal ploy resulting in a penalty. It is good to see the nRL clamp down on this as the game in 2023 was evolving back into a 1950s play the ball contest. The only side effect is the way a defending dummy half is now running into a player near the ruck, and falling over to milk a penalty. But if a attacking player is not there, then there is no opportunity for a penalty, so it will be interesting to see how teams adjust to this.

Round 2 - Stat Attack

Statistically it was a very poor game. Completions dropped to 65% from 80% last week. Errors dropped to 14 from 11 last week. We gave away 4 penalties and 5 6-again calls from 6 last week. Souths Effective 1st tackle was dropped to a very poor level of 41.8m from 37.4m last week. Our missed tackles dropped to a very poor level of 42 from 31 last week. Opposition offloads dropped to 11 from 8 last week.

Looking at our left side defence - Johnston-Kennar-Walker-Koloamatangi (3-3-0-1) improved to 7 from 10 missed tackles last week. On the right side Milne-Tass-Ilias-Murray/Duncan (2-3-2-3) improved to 10 from 12 missed tackles last week. Ruck defence Tatola/Burgess-Cook/Havili-Keppie/Moale-SMitchell/Havili (9-3-6-1) dropped to 19 from 9 missed tackles last week.

Our go forward dropped to 1531m from 1643m last week. With our props made a very poor 351m compared to 441m last week. Keppie, Duncan, Cook and Johnston made 10+m per run. Tatola, LMitchell, Milne, Johnston, Kennar and Tass made 100+m in the match. Defensively Murray was our best in the tackling raking up 47 tackles. Smitchell and Walker didn't miss a tackle.

News This Week

Pre02 Syd Rstrs  Belm L 10-46
Rd01  Manly      LVgs L 20-36
Rd02  Brisbane   LngS L 18-28

Pre02 Souths     Belm W 46-10
Rd01  Brisbane   LVgs W 20-10
Rd02  Manly      Brok L 14-21

2021 Rd03  StAu W 26-16 22,838 A.Klein
2021 Rd24  LngS W 54-12  5,136 A.Klein
2022 Rd03  StAu W 28-16 18,254 G.Atkins
2022 Rd25  SFS2 L 16-26 41,906 G.Atkins
2022 mPSF  SFS2 W 30-14 39,816 A.Klein
2023 Rd03  SFS2 L 18-20 36,669 G.Sutton
2023 Rd27  StAu L 12-26 36,263 A.Gee
2024 Pre02 Belm L 10-46  6,091 A.Klein

First Grade                                            Pe    6A   SB OR SO
2023 Rd21  Brisbane   SunS L 20-36  8,931 Referee      8-3   5-5   -  -  - 
2024 Pre02 Syd Rstrs  Belm L 10-46  6,091 Referee      6-4   3-1   -  1  - 
2024 Rd01  Manly      LVgs L 24-36 40,746 Referee      1-5   3-1   -  -  -

              M   W  D   L      : PeW PeD PeL PeF PeA      : 6AW 6AD 6AL 6AF 6AA      : SB OR SO
v Syd Rstrs   9   4  -   5  44% :   7   -   2  69  44  61% :   1   1   2  11  11  50% :  6  4  -