Am late with this report on the Newington v Joeys game, but others have covered the nitty gritty and given the scores. Some other thoughts (and using the names as listed on the programme.).
• New doesn't have an Apo this year, nor a Roach, nor a Luani, but they have good players across the park and all the ingredients to be as good as 2010 except for intangible things such as concentration, timing and decision making. They actually looked beatable in the 1st 15 minutes after Joeys ran in a couple of early tries to lead 12-0 and in some later periods too. I understand they were dozy for a majority of the match the week before against View. I think they will be their own worst ememies.
• It was good to see 13. Roods healthy and playing well. He is a fine player and was hard to stop every time he got the ball. It's not sensible at this time of the year to say a fellow is a shoo-in for rep footy, but you can say that if there is a better outside centre in NSW, he will be very good indeed. Let's hope he stays fit.
• I would hate to have to feed the bookends 1. Amituanai and 3. Ala'alatoa every day. They haven't lost any weight over the summer. Sometimes it took three Joeys lads to stop one of them and then if quick ball was realised it would be passed to the other one to take it up, often in a pod, whilst the defenders from the first tackle were still picking themselves up.
Joeys players were dragged in for rescue work after two or three of these, but then the ball was whisked out wide to run against a Joeys backline with players missing. The pick and go wasn't executed perfectly every time because the Joeys blue heelers shut it down a lot, but in the end the big boppers wore them down.
• I thought that New flankers 6. Prior-Lees and 7. Baldwin had good games too. Although outshone by his direct opponent 15. Pople is very promising as he has a lot of toe and has a huge boot on him.
• The New backs looked bigger than the Joeys forwards.
• I thought that Joeys would have trouble with the huge New front row in the scrums. They lost a couple through wheeling , but by and large they got their ball cleanly even if they weren't going forward. Their lineouts improved a lot too from last week and apart from a couple of incidents which bombed tries, their passing was much better also.
• 15. Le Leivre had a top game for Joeys and is in the .. “if there is a better schools fullback in NSW he is very good indeed” category. For a change Joeys used his booming boot to get in the right part of the field.
7. Murphy was like a drovers dog all day, especially on restarts, and skipper 5. Kovacic ran and tackled hard in a beaten team. U/16 qualified 10. Deegan had a terrific match. He combined well with his scrummie Kay and for a young bloke passed with commendable accuracy both ways. It was his defence that surprised me though. There's not much of him but he has a big ticker. He just set himself up before the tackle and stopped big guys running into him time after time, though being run over a few times. Watch this space on young Andrew.
• Well done to Newington, but get your act together because there is no saying what you achieve if you succeed in doing that. Well done to Joeys too. Give or take a couple of bombed tries I doubt if you could have played much better at this time of the year.
