No Origin Stars, No worries
After getting smashed by 32 points the week before, it wasn’t looking promising for the Roosters as they took to the field missing 4 of their Origin stars as well as Sio Taukeiaho being a late withdrawal.
None of that fazed them though as senior members of the team stepped up to lead the Roosters to victory. Jake Friend was in everything as he set up both of the Roosters tries while Waerea-Hargreaves led from the front, making 216m for the match.
The young guns made their mark known as well. Mitch Cornish relished the late switch to starting halfback as his long kicking game helped control the match for the Roosters. It was an important win for the Roosters as they head into the bye next round and will look to cement their place in the Top 4 for the run home.
Souths too keen to build on last week’s momentum
By contrast, the Rabbitohs didn’t back up well from their thrashing of the Panthers the week before. Gus Gould, as opinionated as ever, noted they were playing like a team that had just won by a huge margin and was expecting more of the same to happen by playing off the cuff footy constantly.
Indeed the Souths went side to side fairly frequently and the kicking was often shared between Sutton and Farah instead of going to their main man Reynolds. Their 15 offloads were offset by their 10 errors as they squandered attacking chances on the goal line. These errors proved costly with a penalty goal ultimately being all that separated the two teams at full time.
Stats don’t tell the whole story
People can come up with statistics to prove anything, a good percentage of people could tell you that. Sometimes they tell the whole story, other times they paint a brighter picture than what actually is. In this case the stats pointed to Souths being the superior team.
They had more possession, had a higher completion rate made more line breaks, missed less tackles and ran for more metres. In the end though the stats didn’t reflect the execution of these opportunities. The Roosters were the smarter football team in the end who made better decisions in attack and defence.
Ruck area goes unpoliced in referee shocker ย
The play the ball area was a complete mess on both sides account as there were some real blunders let go. One of the Burgess brothers got up and played the ball at a sideways angle without any touch of the foot. It went unpenalized as players from both teams made a mockery of the play the ball.
Despite the officiating of the ruck area being non-existent it still ended up being a whistle happy game.ย The momentum of the game went up and down as players constantly slowed down after tackles to attempt to milk penalties. The penalty counted ended up at 15, 7-8 in the Roosters favour. It was a game where neither side could really be happy with the calls that went for or against them.
Being a referee is a thankless job and they’re under constant scrutiny from fans to media personalities every week. However in this case when the quality of the play the balls would have had Andrew Fifita shaking his head in disapproval, then it’s worth nothing they could have done a better job.
In The Sheds
Michael Gordon left the field at the 73 minute mark with a pectoral injury. He was seen leaving the sheds soon but the seriousness of the injury is unknown as of yet.
Scoreboard
Sydney Roosters- 14
Tries: Joey Manu (19m), Aidan Guerra (61m)
Goals: Michael Gordon 3/3
South Sydney Rabbitohs- 12
Tries: Robbie Farah (50m), Bryson Goodwin (67m)
Goals: Adam Reynolds 2/2
