12th April 2017
In 1967 Souths ventured out to Penrith Park to play kids on the block Penrith. 50 years on we did the same in what turned out to be a thrilling 1point victory. This was a very important win in the scheme of the season. A scrappy win but it was good how we were composed when it mattered most. But there is still a long way to go in the season with 10 more wins required to secure a finals birth.
The important of Adam Reynolds to our team in 2017 is very evident today. Scoring off some good work by Cody Walker, add 4 from 4 critical goals and a match winning fieldgoal to boot. His goalkicking alone keeps us in the game or gives us that winning edge.
Over a Belmore our resreve grade feeder team the North Sydney Bears had a hard fought 2 point win in a low scoring game. Defence was paramount in this veictory and Ben Gardiner has this team well drilled early in the season.
Needing a miracle to make the finals, it wasn't to be for the U18 SG Ball team. Well done to everyone. This week we see the first of these players Rodwell and Hawkins step up in U20s. I expect a few more before the season is out.
ARLC continues its expansion of the Women's game in NSW and Queensland. We are seeing sponsorship deals now coming in. Also expansion at the lower levels in Queensland, and in NSW the junior girls move into their first finals. It will be interesting how all of this pathways pans out in the NSWRL and future QRL womens premierships.
Round 6 - Stat Attack
Statistically another strong effort if you take away the errors by Burns, who struggled against his former club. Completion rates were improved to a good level of 84% from 74% last week. Errors were improved at 9 from 12 last week. But Burns 5 errors in the match is the worst for a number of years. We gave away 4 penalities down from 5 last week. Souths Effective 1st tackle dropped into a good level of 29.0m from 35.6m last week. Our missed tackles dropped into poor level of 30 missed tackles from 25 last week. Opposition offloads dropped to 9 from 6 last week.
Looking at our left side defence - Goodwin-Jennings-Walker-Sutton (0-1-4-0) was dropped to 5 from 8 missed tackles last week. On the right side Burns-Talakai-Reynolds-Crichton (0-2-3-2) was dropped to 7 from 5 missed tackles last week. Ruck defence TBurgess/Musgrove-Cook/Farah-Turner/G.Burgess-SBurgess/Clark (2-2-2-6) improved to 12 from 16 missed tackles last week.
Our go forward this week dropped to 1475m from 1499m. George Burgess made 10+m per run. Sutton, Sam Burgess, Crichton, Walker, Talakai, Goodwin, Burns and Jennings making 100+m in the match. Defensively Sam Burgess was our best in the tackling raking up 51 tackles. With Sutton, George Burgess, Goodwin and Burns not missing a tackle.