2024 - The Cyber View from the Hill

27th Mar 2024

Disaster at the SFS

What a disasterous Moore Park homecoming, that is turning our founding fathers in the graves. Our go forward was poor and our left side defence was non existant, as the opposition ran in 6 tries down that side. The team is really struggling after starting the year with 3 straight losses, which is on top of a poor back end of last season. Its batton down the hatches and a lot of self assessment required to dig ourselves out of this. Finally a home game in 2024. We have to go back to Round 11 2023 when we last won a home game.

Jye Gray strong game

Jye Gray playing in a makshift fullback role in reserve grade continues to impress. Small in stature, he has a uncanny turn of pace as he weavs his way under the bigger forwards, to score another try on the weekend and setup a try. Keep an eye on him, he will be future star.

Lyons scores a double

Shanelle Lyons is one of the stars of our U19 team, and she scored another double on the weekend. A fast rnning centre with a good turn of speed, she makes the most of her chances.

U19s and W-U17s bow out

Our U19 team worked hard against one of the U19 top guns, where a win was critical to stay in final contention. We stayed in the game strongly, but faltered late in the game so see us bow out of the finals race. Strugging to field a full complement of players our W-U17s team also bowed out of the finals race on the weekend.

NRLW Expansion

During the week we saw the ARLC announce a further expansion of the NRLW competition. We see the return of the Warriors and Canterbury were given the other spot. Souths who applied for 2024 were once again excluded in this round of applications. This is so disappointing for the girls as they will now go and play for other clubs further weakening our pathways once again. This is now the 4th rejection based upon geography, as the NRL continues to send a strong message we are not wanted in this competition. Imaging being a parent of young Souths daughter trying to explain once again why she cannot play for her beloved team. The only saving grace is that chairman Peter V'Landy's wants all NRL clubs to be particpating. After this inclusion only Manly, Melbourne, Penrith, Dolphins and Souths remain as teams not participating.

Round 3 - Stat Attack

Statistically it was a poor game. Completions improved to 70% from 65% last week. Errors were steady at 14 again this week. We gave away 5 penalties and 1 6-again calls from 9 last week. Souths Effective 1st tackle was improved to a poor level of 39.1m from 41.8m last week. Our missed tackles improved to a poor level of 36 from 42 last week. Opposition offloads were steady at 11 again this week.

Looking at our left side defence - Johnston-Wighton-Walker-Koloamatangi/Host (2-2-7-3) dropped to 14 from 7 missed tackles last week. On the right side Milne-Tass-Hawkins-Host/Koloamatangi (0-1-5-2) improved to 8 from 10 missed tackles last week. Ruck defence Tatola/Duncan/Burgess-Havili/Cook-Moale/Keppie/Moale-Murray/Duncan (8-0-2-4) improved to 14 from 19 missed tackles last week.

Our go forward dropped to 1499m from 1531m last week. With our props made a horrid 293m compared to 351m last week. Burgess, and Tass made 10+m per run. Koloamatangi, Tatola, Wighton, Milne, Johnston, LMitchell and Tass made 100+m in the match. Defensively Murray was our best in the tackling raking up 55 tackles. Havili, Cook, Keppie, Milne and LMitchell didn't miss a tackle.

News This Week

Rd01  Manly      LVgs L 20-36
Rd02  Brisbane   LngS L 18-28
Rd03  Syd Rstrs  SFS2 L  6-48

Rd01  Parramatta WSS  L  8-26
Rd02  Cronulla   Ende L  6-25
Rd03  Gold Coast Belm W 32-0

2021 Rd04  StAu W 38-0  23,340 G.Atkins
2021 Rd18  Robi W 32-24  2,979 B.Cummins
2022 Rd06  StAu W 36-16 30,194 G.Sutton
2022 Rd18  StAu W 36-28 19,126 C.Butler
2023 Rd06  StAu W 50-16 35,211 G.Sutton
2023 Rd19  StAu L 32-36 16,166 L.Kennedy

First Grade                                            Pe    6A   SB OR SO
2023 Rd08  Penrith    StAu W 20-18 19,548 Referee      3-6   3-1   -  1  - :
2023 Rd17  Nth Qld    StAu L  6-31 11,262 Referee      4-8   0-1   -  2  - :
2024 Rd02  Brisbane   LngS L 18-28 35,507 Referee      4-4   2-5   1  1  - :

              M   W  D   L      : PeW PeD PeL PeF PeA      : 6AW 6AD 6AL 6AF 6AA      : SB OR SO
v Canterbury  5   5  -   - 100% :   2   1   2  41  31  57% :   1   -   1  10   5  67% :  1  -  -