rod skellet
Desmond Connor (43)
Try to View 8 min after 30 phases. What a game. Ft View win 24/16. Best game of schoolboy rugby I have seen in 3 years.
Aloysius won 38-33 after leading 38-12
Then after a poor lick off Barker worked ball up field
FT was 24/18.. Tremendous game. My heart is still racing. View deserved favourites for GPS title from what I have seen. O'Donnel was the difference between the sides. The clash of the 10s was a draw in my opinion. I take my hat off to the Barker defence. View had 2 or 3 stages in the game were they pressured the Barker line with 25 phases or more. Barker pushed the last pass to often, but that was their only criticism. The Reds had the View scrum on skates, winning at least 4 tight heads, but ultimately this did not convert into points due to small errors. I will say this though. Given Barker was without Wil Kennedy at 12, McIntyre at 15 and Hooper at 4, those lads would have made a difference. This game was all about courage and Barker showed plenty, as did View. Both sides will enter their respective comps as favourites. Yes I think Barker deserve to be favourites over Waves, but it will be oh so close at Hornsby.
Anyone else slightly put off by the performance of the ‘view old boys on the eastern side of the oval? I was sitting on the hill but it looked as though they were quite vocal, not to mention their short excursion onto the field after the last play.
Well, maybe. No doubt the kid has talent. But he's in Year 11. Let him prove a few things before we start getting Rugby Australia involved. I'm sure he'll be part of the pathways, and then it's up to him. But I'm not a huge fan of hyping the future of 17 year-olds.
Around the time of the fuss over Sua'ali'i, there was an interesting study of exactly how well the 17 year old NRL players had fared. Let's just say that for every Brad Fittler, there were a dozen players who had peaked at 17-18 and then declined rapidly. The last 17 year old who was hyped to this extent (Donaldson) is still in the process of trying to learn what it's like to win a Super Rugby match. These things take time. It's not in anyone's interests, especially the boy's, to lose perspective.
The CAS v GPS clash is going to be a ripper this year. The CAS have the the better forwards but a combined Joeys / View backline will be very potent.
Trinity 20 edged out Shore 14, thanks to a Kidd hat-trick. So the men in green have won six straight, but go into the Associated Schools rounds likely to finish no higher than fourth. Waverley, of course, put 48 points on Shore, and Knox won its game 30-14. So today's result tends to confirm that this is a competitive Trinity side, but one that will be lucky to threaten the top three.
Snort, that confirms that this Trinity side is VERY capable.
Shore is a solid GPS side and Trinity have won every game, so their confidence should be pretty high.'
That's great, maybe they can knock over the 2 front runners, in particular Barker, and then Knox.
Waves need to improve dramatically on todays performance, to be honest.
I’m not sure Rod, having seen both joeys and view, O’Donnell and Jorgensen are standouts but I wasn’t blown away by the others.. from a knox perspective 10, 12 and 15 are exceptional and I expect the barker 10 to be the best of the lot by all reports plus 13 and others.. waves no doubt have plenty (haven’t seen either barker or waves yet and we all know how last year was from a viewing perspective). any really good wingers around in the cas this year?
I see what you did there, WLF. Always nice to be the underdog. Thing is, Waverley is unbeaten (188 points for and 72 against in its last five games) and has played stronger opposition than anyone else but Barker and Knox, who have both sustained losses. I believe you that Waverley struggled in beating Oakhill by 15. But Knox lost to Oakhill.
I'm still saying it's too close to call, with Waverley and Barker jointly the front-runners, Knox a step behind (but capable of an upset) and Cranbrook, Trinity and St Aloysius fighting for fourth.