OldColt
Sydney Middleton (9)
Southern Districts had a more difficult draw coming into yesterday's match against Gordon and maybe they were entitled to favouratism, although I didn't see the 40-0 away victory coming.
Having not seen the game I'd be pleased to read any reviews.
I might be a bit biased (well....make that a lot) but the Souths performance was impressive in every facet of the game. The set pieces were impressive with a couple of scrum penalties highlighting their dominance in that area, and they won all but a couple of their own line outs. Last week against Norths the breakdown was an issue, but the timing was much better this week, and resulted in a number of good turnovers, and a couple of penalties.
The score was nil-all for the first 25 mins, and while Gordon defended well during the early stages, it always looked like Souths would break through, and three quick tries before half-time saw them go to the break 22-0 in front. The first try came from a nice short ball from the tight-head prop (Valeni) to the flying fullback (Bell) who went over untouched beside the posts. The second try went to the lock (Wilson) after a series of pick and drives, and the third saw a neat interchange of short passes after the hooker (Wayland) made the initial break, and passed outside to the no. 8 (Lawson) when then passed back inside to the blindside flanker (Finch) who went over beside the uprights - the five-eighth (Kuenzle) slotted a couple of conversions and a penalty goal to make up the 22 pts.
The second half was much of the same, with the Souths line speed in defence shutting down any of Gordon's efforts to mount attacking raids, and the continued dominance at the set piece continually putting Gordon on the back foot. Two more penalty goals to Kuenzle, and 2 tries - one to the right winger (Carmody) and another to the left winger (Naleba) which was converted by the outside centre (Morris) resulted in the final score of 40-0.
While Gordon had some impressive players (the no. 8, Clifford, was the pick of them), Souths shut them down in every way - they were more polished and far more enthusiastic, and even in the dying minutes, the Souths defence repelled Gordon's last gasp attack with a degree of vigour that you'd normally see at the start of a game.
While Gordon got away with a close win in 3rds, 26-19, they dominated the 2nds encounter with a more convincing 39-12 victory. Fortunately for Souths, the 1st Grade boys put the smiles back on the faces of everyone who'd made the trek north to Chatswood.