What a game out at Perth. This was one of the best ever games of RL every played by Souths in recent years. You need to image that at one stage we had Inglis injured, Goodwin injured, Walker broken thumb, McQueen playing wing and Turner in the centers. Goergr Burgess and Clark off with concussion. Then we were 6-14 down with 32 min to play. The fight back that then happened was just great to see.
What more can you say Walker chimed in so well with two great left right steps and a burst of speed that left the Warriors in his wake. And considering he played the second half with a broken thimb and then still score a try one handed was class.
After the onslaught and brute power of the Warriors early it was great to see the 3 Burgess boys lead from the front to dominate the Warriors pack.
Tevita Cottrell becomes our next junior rep player for 2014 winning selection in the U18 SOO team after making his debut in U20s a few weeks ago.
Wayne Bennett has come up with a interesting proposal for SOO in principal it is a round having a split round during SOO. With 4 games one weekend and 4 games in the second weekend. SOO players would not be able to back up for their clubs for the whole split round, thus taking the control out of the clubs and players when they try and back up. This will remove the need for BYE points to be awarded. Doing it back to back for 6 weeks however is the main concern and there was no consideration given to City v Country weekend.
Statistically after the initial onslaught we controlled the game on the back of forward power and a perfect error free second half. Completion rates were our best all year at 89% but we only 5 errors and conceeded 6 penalties our best combined result so far this year. Souths Effective 1st tackle for the match good at 30.5m. Missed tackles dropped with the Warriors power game to 23 missed tackles this week. And we reduced our opposition offloads back to 6. Which was a great result against the Warriors size.
Looking at our left side defence - Reddy-Auva'a-Sutton-Turner/Teo (2-4-3-1) was dropped under the Hurrell onslaught from 1 to 10 missed tackles. On the right side Goodwin/McQueen-Walker/Turner-Reynolds-Teo/SBurgess (1-1-2-2) also dropped from 3 to 6 missed tackles this week. Which was very good considering the disruptions caused by injuries.
Our go forward dropped slightly but was still very good at 1426m. Walker, Auva'a, Koroisau leading the way in the go forward all making 10+m per run. With George, Sam, Tom Burgess, Teo, Auva'a and Walker making more that 100+m in the match. Defensively Sam Burgess was our best in the tackling raking up 34 tackles. With Luke, Clark and McQueen not missing a tackle.