Mitch Cornish played pretty much as well as he could have, especially with BA in attendance. Defended well with the Roos directly plenty of traffic his way and was obviously dominant in attack.
Danny Wicks and Rory O'Brien were pillars up front. Both played big minutes with Wicks playing a huge stretch from the start and were highly physical in attack and defence. Wicks will be very hard to keep out of first grade next week, almost certain to form part of the extended bench while O'Brien looks to be a really fascinating project.
Tanginoa spent time on both the edge and in the middle and did quite well in both capacities. He looked waaaaay more comfortable on the edges compared to his last stint there for us back in 2014. Got one short break but otherwise played a long, quality game. Scored a superb individual try where he left defenders strewn in his wake from ~30m out. Good to have him back home.
Cody Nelson was also very good. Typically industrious performance from the newly installed captain. Scored a try after running a good line off Zach Nichols in the first half.
Out in the backs I thought Bureta Faraimo played quite well while both centres were very good. John Folau put together his best overall performance in a long time. Really clean in defence, lots of good work coming out of our own half and actually resembled the massive red zone threat he should be.
Barring one bad read that lead to the first try for the Roos, Vai Toutai was also on point. Physical in defence, bullish in the red zone and following on from some of the circus tricks he showed us in the Nines he shows surprising deftness at times.
Think the 3,2,1 is pretty clear with Tanginoa's second half effort propelling him ahead of O'Brien.
3. Mitch Cornish
2. Danny Wicks
1. Kelepi Tanginoa
