Sydney Subbies 2022

[Pfitzy]

STAGS v RENEGADES - After two losses against strong sides I think the Renegades will be hungry here and have a win over the struggling stags. Will be a different kettle of fish than the previous rounds. GADES by 15

Certainly going to be interesting - we picked up 5 injuries from Epping across the grades and have about a dozen absent because of work or family. Watched a bit of Chatswood versus Oysters and the Stags look relatively young and fit. Just checked the sheets and there is only one guy older than me - their starting hooker. Everyone else is a good 10-25 years younger...

 

[NeckThing]

Tough day for Blacktown yesterday getting swept by Valley and losing 1st Grade 93-0. Doesn’t get any easier for them with a trip to Newport next weekend.

 

[WoodyWoodsman]

Tough day for Blacktown yesterday getting swept by Valley and losing 1st Grade 93-0. Doesn’t get any easier for them with a trip to Newport next weekend.

Some great recruiting by Hawkesbury Valley. Some quality rugby players in their first grade team, led by 2021 Two Blues captain, Riley Jacobsen and the Tully boys. Obviously that quality then filters down.

 

[WoodyWoodsman]

Just straight up tips for the Woodsman this week. Hoping the dry weather brings about a bit of running rugby.
DIVISION 1 (ROUND 2)
Hunters Hill vs Knox
St Pats vs Petersham
Blue Mountains vs Forest
Mosman vs Drummoyne
Waverley vs Colleagues

DIVISION 2 (ROUND 3)
Valley vs Blacktown
Newport vs Beecroft
Lindfield vs Briars
Old Barker vs UNSW
Harlequins vs Iggies

DIVISION 4 (ROUND 3)
Chatswood vs Renegades
Saints vs Harbour
Merrylands vs Savers
Epping vs HAC
Canterbury vs Redfield
Raptors vs Mac Uni

DIVISION 5 (ROUND 3)
Oatley vs Menai
Brothers vs Balmain
Kings Old Boys vs Irish
North Cronulla vs Dukes
Burraneer vs Wakehurst

DIVISION 1: Hunters, Mosman in the winner's circle. Woody's Div 1 knowledge not helping. Well done to Forest on a tough road trip.
DIVISION 2: 4/4 with Barker refusing to travel to Daceyville when their gound was unavailable.
DIVISION 4: Raptors rebound and Chatswood too good for Renegades. 4/6
DIVISION 5: 4/4 with Burraneer/Wakehurst washed out.

 

[SuburbanCornChip]

Here we go for round 3! How good is a sunny week allowing clubs to string some training and games together.


Round 3 Division 2:

NEWPORT VS BEECROFT:

Beecroft are yet to get off the mark for the year and will be a little flat. Travelling out to Newport won’t help their case. Newport will be on a high and should easily put the foot on the throat on Saturday. NEWPORT by 26 ACTUAL: Newport by 62

BRIARS VS LINDFIELD:

Briars have had a week off with the wet weather to ponder their shaky start. Lindfield still look like they’re blowing out the cobwebs but seem to be one of the doable scalps for the Div 3 teams along with BOBs. Still think Lindfield will take the chocolates here. LINDFIELD BY 7 ACTUAL: Lindfield by 18

IGGIES VS SYDNEY HARLEQUINS:

On a quick look down memory lane these appear to have been pretty closely fought in previous years. Don’t expect anything less here. Quins could run away with it with depleted Iggies cattle in 2022 but expecting something closer at the start of the year. Quins might get caught off guard on the step up from Blacktown and the week off. QUINS by 5 ACTUAL: QUINS by 34

UNSW VS OLD BARKER:

BoBs have their first test and won’t be up for it. Will have a fair bit of confidence but it might work against them. UNSWs counter attack will slap them up. UNSW by 21 POSTPONED

BLACKTOWN VS VALLEY:

Valley did pretty well against Newport in round 1 and should stroll to their first competition points pretty easily on Saturday. Feel for Blacktown. They’ve got a good club and great family support but they might struggle to get on the board in 2022. They’ll have to catch iggies on an off week and hope they have a team wedding. VALLEY BY 38 ACTUAL: Valley by 93 sheesh

Round 3 Division 4:

Gee whiz what a round some good match ups here.


CANTERBURY v REDFIELD - I think the Berries will be too good here but it’ll be a battle in the middle. Two games under their belt and it being home at Wills will help them bring it home. Redfield seem to be leaking points so they’ll have to step up the D. CANTERBURY by 5 ACTUAL: Redfield by 31

MERRYLANDS v SAVERS - Torn here. Manly have scored 31 in both games and won comfortably. But Merrylands put the hurt on raptors. I think savers have swung me but may get thrown off my the physicality of Merrylands. SAVERS by 12 ACTUAL: Merrylands by 2

HAC v EPPING - Great to see HAC get a win last week but they’ll lose this one on travel and depth at Epping. RAMS by 22 ACTUAL: Epping by 72

HARBOUR v SAINTS - Eek it’s gonna be a bit of a cricket score here again. Similar to the stags thumping last week. HARBOUR by 52 ACTUAL: Harbour by 35

MAC UNI v RAPTORS - Would have loved to see how mad uni fared against the Berries. I think they’ve collapsed in numbers but actually think the raptors will get up here. Second weekend in a row playing footy will do them well. RAPTORS by 5 ACTUAL: Raptors by 21

STAGS v RENEGADES - After two losses against strong sides I think the Renegades will be hungry here and have a win over the struggling stags. Will be a different kettle of fish than the previous rounds. GADES by 15 ACTUAL: Stags by 19

4/4 in Div 2 (with Barker/UNSW postponed) wild that they would rather call it off given we could have another wet week this week. Take any footy you can get at this point. Closest game was by 18 the rest were blowouts with some being larger than the others. Watched Quins/Iggies and it would've probably blown out more if not for two yellows. Looked like an opens vs colts game in terms of size out there. Newport looked unreal again and really gave it to Beecroft. Don't need to mention Valley/Blacktown. They're just not up to it fitness wise even with the Div 3 teams let alone the Div 2 ones.

3/6 in Div 4: What a win by Merrylands. Some dicey picks in there.

 

[Heavyd]

Hawkesbury Valley are big smokies for mine in Div 2. Looks like Breakers, HV, UNSW and Hills to fight it out for Barraclough.

 

[Pfitzy]

Hawkesbury Valley are big smokies for mine in Div 2. Looks like Breakers, HV, UNSW and Hills to fight it out for Barraclough.

Reckon Lindfield are a shot - they've had a bye, Newport, and Briars so far, which makes it hard to read anything into their form. UNSW at Soldiers this weekend should be enlightening.

 

[SuburbanCornChip]

Reckon Lindfield are a shot - they've had a bye, Newport, and Briars so far, which makes it hard to read anything into their form. UNSW at Soldiers this weekend should be enlightening.

I think the battle for the finals (top 6) will be pretty interesting. You'd think Newport, UNSW, Hills are gimmes. I'd say Lindfield, Barker, Valley and Quins will fight it out for the other 3 spots. I give Quins the best shot out of the Div 3 teams by virtue of them having Briars, Blacktown and Iggies as the teams they play twice (should be 6 easy bonus point wins based on form).

 

[Waterloo_Ned]

We are travelling really nicely at Harlequins and our numbers/quality is improving by the week (If you look at our teams last week you will notice). I don't know if we can win the competition, but I think we can have a deep run. We may have only defeated Blacktown by 20 but they did put all their points on late, and I would debate they were probably stronger at home. We are also undefeated in 2s.

Valley are an introducing team. They recruited well midseason last week and were finishing like a ton of bricks. I don't know how that effects their 2nd Grade, but their 1s are the real deal and will push any side. Even if they have a poor 2nd round draw playing "Newport", "The Bye" and "Blacktown", where they potentially only get 1 win, I think they will do enough in the regular rounds to be well and truely safe.

 

[Pfitzy]

McClean Cup (Div 4 First Grade) finalists should be Oysters, Epping, Redfield, Savers, Saints, and Canterbury. Harbour to win it, cruising.

Grose Cup (Div 4 Second Grade) finalists should be "Oysters", Epping, Redfield, Savers, and whoever decides to start stacking at the back end of the season.

 

[Prodigy]

McClean Cup (Div 4 First Grade) finalists should be Oysters, Epping, Redfield, Savers, Saints, and Canterbury. Harbour to win it, cruising.

Grose Cup (Div 4 Second Grade) finalists should be "Oysters", Epping, Redfield, Savers, and whoever decides to start stacking at the back end of the season.

I’ll be surprised if we don’t see Merrylands or Raptors in the mix

 

[Waterloo_Ned]

McClean Cup (Div 4 First Grade) finalists should be Oysters, Epping, Redfield, Savers, Saints, and Canterbury. Harbour to win it, cruising.

Grose Cup (Div 4 Second Grade) finalists should be "Oysters", Epping, Redfield, Savers, and whoever decides to start stacking at the back end of the season.

Div 4
Oysters (Unbeatable and would win Division 2)
Merrylands
Manly
HAC
2 of Redfield/Epping/Saints/Raptors for the last two spots.

I would say Epping and Redfield sneak in, but Saints are making big inroads on the back of a new free flowing style of rugby. Raptors no-one knows anything about, but if they get a few more boys down, then they are probably the only team who could push Oysters.

 

[The Year Of]

Div 4
Oysters (Unbeatable and would win Division 2)
Merrylands
Manly
HAC
2 of Redfield/Epping/Saints/Raptors for the last two spots.

I would say Epping and Redfield sneak in, but Saints are making big inroads on the back of a new free flowing style of rugby. Raptors no-one knows anything about, but if they get a few more boys down, then they are probably the only team who could push Oysters.

Think you may be mixing up HAC with Epping! Epping only beat HAC by 70 on Sat!!!

 

[Denistone_Dennis]

4/4 in Div 2 (with Barker/UNSW postponed) wild that they would rather call it off given we could have another wet week this week. Take any footy you can get at this point. Closest game was by 18 the rest were blowouts with some being larger than the others. Watched Quins/Iggies and it would've probably blown out more if not for two yellows. Looked like an opens vs colts game in terms of size out there. Newport looked unreal again and really gave it to Beecroft. Don't need to mention Valley/Blacktown. They're just not up to it fitness wise even with the Div 3 teams let alone the Div 2 ones.

3/6 in Div 4: What a win by Merrylands. Some dicey picks in there.

Cheers to the UNSW boys who sent a stack of their 1s and 2s players to play 3s and 4s against Epping after their game got cancelled. Most of them aren't even on the team sheets...

 

[Pfitzy]

I’ll be surprised if we don’t see Merrylands or Raptors in the mix

Potentially they could swap places with Saints/Berries. Will depend on their numbers and discipline holding.

 

[Eastcoast]

Great weekend of footy in Div 1. Was down at Boronia for a high quality match.
Any news on why St Pats turned down 2 penalties from in front only down by 2 in the last play of the game? Was it due to missing from in front last week?

 

[Eastcoast]

Funnily enough I think there was 1 1st grade player (off after 20 mins of 3rds due to a knee clash) and 1 2nd grade player. The rest were 3s 4s (who played most of both games, at least 10 blokes played all of 4s and most of 3s) or colts...and I think there were only about 3 of them.

Very smart strategy to start stacking this early in the season. Ive been impressed with Uni's quality across the first two weeks. Would have been nice for Cluch to televise Div2/3/4 3rd and 4th grade games so we could get a look at how the higher grade players go in the morning hours

 

[Waterloo_Ned]

UNSW would never do this. They are not that type of club, it is not there go.

I am looking forward to UNSW playing Valley. This could be the grand final no-one expected.

 

[Heavyd]

UNSW would never do this. They are not that type of club, it is not there go.

I am looking forward to UNSW playing Valley. This could be the grand final no-one expected.

They wouldnt stack this early but UNSW are the kings of the late stack in years gone by.

 

[Pfitzy]

Grounds closed for training. Boo!

Lot of pressure coming onto our field due to to the wet weather affecting other rugby league in the area. Jersey Flegg and NSW Cup has been shifted around a lot so they've got a lot of spinning plates to manage.