RMC
Wins to St Marys, Ryde Eastwood, Brothers and Glebe means the ladder is as follows:
St Marys 30, Glebe 22, Mounties 21, Wenty 20, Ryde Eastwood 19, Brothers 17, Canterbury 13, Hills 10.
St Marys again Minor Premiers by a significant margin and the other 2 positions in the top 3 wide open, while Brothers took advantage of Wenty missing a few players, to keep their hopes alive.
Anthony Raheb produced a gold medal performance by scoring 5 tries against the Bulldogs. An achievement of this magnitude may have occurred in more recent times but my memories are of Scott Ella and Francis Betham both doing it for Wenty against Newtown in 2002. A Few years earlier, Jamie Tighe score 7 tries for Hills in a Metro Cup reserve grade game.
An interesting note about the games today is that in SS the Glebe vs Hills game was played at 1pm at Wentworth Park and the RMC games was played at Crestwood at 3pm - a bit unusual but Hills appeared to be short of players, and with their SS team still with some hope, did not want to weaken that side. Thus, 2 of the Hills interchange players for RMC had to move very quickly from Ultimo to Baulkham Hills.
SS
The ladder is: Wenty 27, Ryde Eastwood 23, Mounties 22, Glebe 20, St Marys 19, Brothers 19, Cabramatta 17, Hills 17, Manly 16, Moorebank 10.
Manly's upset against Cabramatta today gives them a very slight chance if they were to win their last 3 games. Cabra along with St Marys and Hills have damaged their chances by losses this round. Glebe have been performing strongly in recent times, winning 6 of their last 7 games. They have 5 ex Silktails - 2 in RMC and 3 in SS today.
Mounties have managed to get a few absentees back on the field this weekend in SS. Prior to yesterday - Matt Lewin had played only the first 2 RMC games; Livai Saukuru last played in RMC on 12 May and Mosese Pope had not taken the field this season. Similarly, Antonio Pelesasa played his first game for St Marys this season in the same game.
Mounties have used 46 players in RMC, 44 in SS and a total 64 in the 2 grades.