Just finished watching the replay so here's my full report,
Attack
Coming into this game, we were all calling for our boys to sort their shit out and we were all hoping that our attack would finally click. It fills me with joy to say that's exactly what happened.
It was a very shaky start and we looked pretty poor once again. Pretty flat and clunky, errors galore, we didn't look like scoring. But thankfully, we settled it down, worked ourselves back into the game and at about the 20 minute mark, the clunkiness completely disappeared and South Sydney were back! However, once again to start the second half, we were average again for 20 minutes. Back to the 'going through the motions' BS. It looked terrible!! But once again, to their credit, the boys snapped out of it and put on a show in the last 20 minutes again.
So, I'll just talk about our good periods here. How good was it to see us go away from the boring one-out shit and just play some Footy?!! Look at how friggin effective it was!! We identified a weakness on the Dogs' left edge with Addo-Carr gone (great tactics), and went there relentlessly. All of a sudden, passes were sticking, the timing came right, players were energised and pushing up around the ball, it just looked lethal!! The Dogs simply couldn't stop it. Some of the tries we scored were simply beautiful, so great to watch!!
For me, this just proves what I, and many others, have been going on about for the last six weeks. That if we get our own game right, we are so damn hard to stop. This performance just proves that. Look at the periods we were off, compared to the periods where we got it right. It's chalk and cheese. Minimise errors, Latrell gets involved, the spine fires and there ain't nothing that can stop us. The boys know that now, they've just proved it to themselves. let this be a lesson moving forward and we now know what we have to do.
The scary thing for other teams is that once again, it was mostly right-side play. The left is still yet to really fire... But it will....
Defence
Overall, I'm pretty happy with the defensive performance. Poor defensive discipline early on but they sorted it out thankfully. Obviously, there was that try off the scrum early on that was really poor from Milne and Walker but aside from that, we did pretty well. The Dogs scored off a grubber, which could have been covered better for sure, and a somewhat lucky intercept. I can kinda cop that. The rest of the game, Canterbury didn't really look like scoring. We didn't give them many chances and when they did have a chance, our lads were strong and turned them away. It was great to see. Our defence paved the way for our attack.
Player By Player
L.Mitchell: TripleMit!!!! What a night for our man in his milestone game! He copped the flack from a lot of us and the media after last week but boy, didn't he silence his critics in a big way?! An emphatic way. You could see right from the start that he was switched on and what a difference it makes. he was pushing up around the ball, looking for the ball and injecting himself. He was taking carries and purposeful kick returns when he could. Again, Trell just proved everything a lot of us have been saying. When he just injects himself and is in and around the ball, we're a completely different side and this performance just proves it. How good was he?? Probing around early on, some nice plays but no real success. That was until he scored two tries in two minutes! Great support play for both, he sniffed the opportunity and followed the ball, it's what all the great fullbacks do and it's something we haven't got from him lately. Later in the 66th minute, he was turning it on again with his support play to complete the hat-trick. But probably his most flashy plays came after that. Firstly, putting Stretch over for his second through amazing ball playing. He shaped to go short which got Alamoti interested, but then threw an absolute peach to Graham. Then, minutes later came one of the more special plays of his career. Again, something we haven't seen, Trell shows effort in chasing a bomb and creates his own luck, the ball falls in his lap and he shrugs off two defenders (still don't know how he did that) and delivers an amazing round the corner pass the Stretch for his hat-trick. The only way I can describe that is freakish. What's more, Trell's goal kicking was great too for a personal haul of 26 points. The only criticism I have of him after last night is his inability to position himself to cover the kick when Burton scored. But man, what a night for him in his 150th!! Man of the match, can't praise him enough. The challenge now is to not drop the standard next week.
Milne: I thought he was pretty good. Poor defence early on with that full field Bulldogs try, he got burnt by Kiraz which forced Cody to hesitate and Averillo was gone. But apart from that, Taane impressed me. The rest of his defensive game was solid, took all those high balls which made me really nervous all week, some really good carries for 119 meters and a nice little play to slightly skittle the Canterbury defence when Cody scored. If Thompson isn't right for next week, and JD doesn't pick Karapani, I'm happy for Taane to stay on the wing.
Tass: certainly not his best game, but that's not to say he wasn't good. A couple of errors with a forward pass and a dropped ball but other than that, he was solid. Didn't really get a lot of opportunities as the attack mostly went right but he played his hand. Really good tough carries, constantly put his hand up as he always does and sound defensively. Had a couple of nice catch-passes in a clear sign that he is working on it.
Graham: Amazing. Certainly, one of our best and if it wasn't for such a great game from Trell, I'd probably have Stretch as my man of the match. He was enormous. Firstly, his carries out of the backfield were incredible. Strong in every single one of them. He had a big 150 meters which is awesome. But before I get to his best moments, I'll talk about his defence. How good was he in this area?! Nothing got past him. Twice in the game the Dogs genuinely looked dangerous going to our right, twice Campbell reads it beautifully, rushes up and shuts it down. Brilliant stuff. But not only did he do the tough stuff, he had some awesome, flashy moments too. The first was his work on Trell's second try, a great bit of play. Stretch takes the pass and has the overlap so sprints into the clear, he realises he's going to get caught so takes it infield and looks like he's going to take the tackle which isn't a bad option. But no, he pops an amazing offload to Cody out of nowhere and the rest is history!! But he didn't stop there, it just got better! Moving to the wing after Thompson's injury, he shows AJ-like awareness with his positioning and bags three tries in ten minutes. Well-deserved for an awesome game.
Thompson: Speaking of awesome games, I thought Izaac was really, really good. He made a couple of errors as he wasn't able to finish two try-scoring opportunities, but I won't be too hard on him as they were pretty tough to be fair. But he was great in all other areas. Some huge carries on his way to a big 151 meters off 13 carries. Great play in setting up Trell for his first try, and his defence was pretty sound too. It's a real shame he got injured because I've been impressed with him in recent weeks, he's certainly improving. was jumping around celebrating in the sheds after the game so hopefully the injury isn't too bad.
Walker: Cody had a day out too which was great to watch. You could see it early that he was switched on and ready to go. Even when we weren't playing that great to start, Cody looked dangerous as he probed and pushed up around the ball. But he really came alive in our good periods of attack and really put on a show. Had a hand in both of Latrell's first two tries, the first through a nice cut out pass to Thompson to create the space, then he pushed up off the Campbell Graham line break (through a nice team play), took a miraculous pass from Stretch and showed freakish ability to reel the pass in and then still get it away from Trell while he was falling. Amazing. But Cody wasn't done there in the first half, Another try assist for him as he held the pass up just long enough off a shift got create a hole, then hit Hosty who strolled though. His second half was just as good as it was Cody who kicked us into gear again. This time, it was him scoring through some stepping and determination. Then he capped off a great night later in the game with that brilliant face ball for Graham's first. You won't see better ball-playing than that. Well done Codes! Great to see him hitting top form.
Ilias: In a pretty good team performance, I thought Lachy was probably our weakest link. I'm not going to bag him like some are, because I do think he's our future and I back him all the way, but he does deserve some constructive criticism. Again, we saw a lot of passes from him not hit the mark as he tries to get rid of the ball too quickly without looking. Needs to learn to just cop the hit there because it really took away all our momentum in those sets. I'm also starting to get a little concerned that we're not seeing any improvement in his kicking game. Yea, he put up some nice kicks, especially the one that Campbell scored his third off but aside from that, a lot of his kicks were those 'lollipop' bombs. There's no variety there. It's a concern and probably the biggest area of his game he needs to work on. We're not seeing any improvement yet which is a worry but hopefully it's coming. However, despite all this, he did still have some really good moments. Played his part perfectly in all three of Latrell's tries. His third especially was great as Lachy put Cartwright away. So yea, a bit to work on for the kid I think. He's been dipping a little bit recently.
