#43 - Junior reps finals review

Reviewing the Harold Matthews and SG ball preliminary finals 

IG - Theshortball_

Transcript

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Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the Shortball podcast for another week. Split episode this week. So one coming out Wednesday when you'll be listening, or maybe you're listening later. I don't know. But um yeah, one coming out today, purely reviewing the junior reps action, so junior reps focused stuff because we are right in the thick of it now. Um prelim finals and then grand finals coming up this week, and then I'm gonna do a longer one later. It's gonna come out Thursday morning in its usual time slot, you know, the usual 45 to an hour long episode talking about everything. Um but yeah, I wanted to sort of split that up because I wanted to sort of deep dive into these junior reps finals, um, and then yeah, we'll we'll move on to that. Um and there's a lot of talking points to come from New South Worlds Cup and um some origin news uh to come out of the main podcast as well, so make sure you tune in for that. Um but yeah, we'll get just straight into it with our performances as per usual. Uh performances in Howard Matthews and SG Ball. I've got two from each game, uh, and only one of them is sort of just the top, the tippity top performances from each game. Um for the Roosters, I thought it was uh two guys. My player of the match was Ty Skipps um in the Roosters vs. Steelers game. The Roosters, Howard Matthews. Uh Ty Skipps was my uh player of the match in that game. He had two tries, he had a couple of huge early plays in this one. Um, you know, he came up with I think it was an intercept or a forced error about you know 20 odd minutes into the game that put them into good field position. He scored two tries. The second one was classy, the first one was just a really good line run and just powerful from the back row. He he played really well on the weekend, and the second half he was solid, did his job, um, but he really set up the game with with some of those contributions early on um during the game. And then um Arbour Boothrowed, when the game was there needed needing to be won, he was the guy that stepped up. Um, you know, he was good throughout the course of the game, and then late on he throws a brilliant cutout ball to put Andy Toy over. That gives him the lead, and then he throws another brilliant cutout ball to to win it in the end, like just to to shut the game down, and it's done. Um that was probably a better ball uh that put them up 36-26 with a minute to go and and you know put the nail in the coffin is supposed the term I'm looking for. He had four line break assists, three try assists, um, two offloads, and just came up with those clutch plays. And for Ty Skipps, it was two tries, two line breaks, a couple tackle breaks, an offload, and uh 10 runs for 89 metres in the back rows, solid effort over um 60 60 minutes. So um yeah, the both of them really uh clutch performances well, really clutch from Harper Boothroyd, and then Ty Skipps just a brilliant performance to set up the win um from him. In the next game, the Panthers versus the Knights in Howard Matthews as well. Uh I thought the two standouts for the Newcastle Knights were Cade McKay and Malachi Fave Eli. Um Kate McKay came up with two tries, including the one that sealed at the end. His first try was classy, great kick chase, uh come down with the ball and scores for them. He had eight runs for 67, not huge, 24 tackles, good, which was good. Um, but yeah, it was just those two game-breaking plays that he had, the the one at the end to finish it off. And um the the the one where you know I'll talk about a little bit later, but it was really a grinding set for set sort of contest, and he was the one that injected some life into it from an attacking point of view. So um huge from here. Malachi Five A Eli, he was huge. Um, I'll talk a little bit more about his matchup on that left edge with you know the the South right edge, which I spoke about in the preview, but he he was dominant. 21 runs for 219 metres, 11 tackle breaks, 13 tackles without a miss. Uh yeah, just a very aggressive ball running, just strong out of yardage. Um, you know, he didn't have those mad attacking highlights, but he just did so many things right on both sides of the ball to put knights into a position to win the game. Um, and yeah, I just visually watching the game as well. Like those two were the clear standouts for mine. Um for the Knights SG ball, Toby Winter, he was my pathways player of the round two trials tries. He's came up with some huge defensive plays. Um, I'll talk about them in a little bit more detail later. But yeah, he came up with some really big defensive plays throughout the course of this game, and yeah, on top of that, the attacking brilliance that we know Toby Winter can offer, especially you know, been following me for a while. You'll know how much I've highlighted him for his ability to create points, and uh he just did that again on the weekend. Mel Nadu, 155 metres, three tries. Like you can't really um look past that. He he's been awesome this year, and um yeah, if it was still under 19s or if it goes ahead as under 19s, he'd be right up there for the Queensland wing spot. Um, but we'll discuss that on tomorrow's episode. Um Rex Bathenswaite in the Roosters vs. Rabido's SG ball contest, he was my best on ground there. Had a try and a try assist in his kicking game was good. Um coming in, he sort of took control of the kicking. Um we'll talk about that as well when we get deeper into the game. But um, yeah, he he just looked like he had his hands on everything good that the Roosters did throughout the course of this game. Uh there's not much more to say on top of that. He he did drop a ball early, that's which led to the first Taj Alvarez try, a tricky one to take uh under the contest and all that, but apart from that, he was really solid back there. And yeah, he just just visually, every single time he touched the ball, it looked like the Roosters were gonna do something. And and on the other side of the park, Taji Alvarez, he was the same for the Rabbios. Whenever he touched the ball, he looked like he was gonna go through or he was gonna set something up. He was he was throwing cut-out balls, which was creating space on the outside, or you know, he had two line breaks in this game, one try. He set up the um he set up the second try with a line break as well, so he was very dangerous. Those two very class players um from both from both sides, and they stood up when they needed to. Um The Roosters came away with the win and that won 24-14. We'll get deeper into that contest when we get there. But we will start off SG ball, um Seagulls versus Knights. The Knights came away 40.6 winners, booking their spot in the SG Ball grand final. I thought, you know, they've won 40 points to six. It's domination, really. Their defensive work really set the tone or sort of established this win. It was eight points to nil, about the 18th minute mark around that. They defended three sets in a row on their line. Bo Hill came up with a huge stop on Ashton Large. Chase Butler had a couple of huge one-on-one tackles. Chase Butler was the one that I wanted to talk about first. I've already said he was the best defensive half, or he is the best defensive half in his age group. You know, you've got guys like Carter Marico, very good defensive half as well. But I think Chase Butler, I I've seen enough from him over the last two years to say he's the best defensive half in the age group. And again, in this game, on Atoni Large and Bo McKee, who have been really dangerous on that right edge for the Manley Seagulls, they went at him a couple times and he came up with a few huge one-on-one stops there, um, especially, you know, in this period, the 18th to 20th minute mark that I highlighted. He came up with two pretty good stops there, um, one on McKee and one on Onatoni Large. Um the the onatoni large wasn't one-on-one, but he he drove back and won that contact there very convincingly. Um, yeah, he he he's been very good on that side of the ball for a half, um, and a guy that I'm I'm keen to see progress and keen to see how he goes in the grand final next week. It's going to be his second chance at a uh junior reps grand final in two years. He obviously took the Knights to the Harold Matthews grand final last year, but they fell short to Bishop Neal's Warriors. Um, but yeah, he's another great performance from him. Um Bo Hill as well, huge stop on Ashton, large one-on-one. I think I might have already mentioned that, but he was next on my notes. Um Toby Winter, he came up with a few huge stops as well. He Andis Johansson takes one out of dummy half, and Toby Winter was the first into contact and won that physical battle and drove him back as well. Just those, all of those stops turned into okay, they turned them around, it's 8-0. Um it could have well and truly been 8-6 at the end of that period, but no, they've turned him away, it's 8-0. And then they went down the field. Jalen Bishop makes a line break, then they go out to the right. I think it was Callum Elsley that might have scored at the end of that, or was Mel Nonu, it was one of those two out of the right. You could say one of those two scored pretty much every single one of the tries in the first half. Um I think they did actually, because Mel Nonu scored. Mel Nonu scored a first half hat-trick, Callum Elsley scored one of them. Um there might have been one more try in the first half, 24-nil went into the breakout, but that was really what won the game that 18th to extend it out to the 30th minute mark, because then they scored another two tries late before the halftime break. Um, yeah, it was that defensive precedent that sort of helped him out. Curtis Malheron, he was huge in this game. Um, you know, running the ball, he was obviously very dangerous, but he came up with a few stops as well. Just an all-round, you wouldn't be able to find a guy that didn't play well for this team. Archie Milwain out on the left wing. I thought he was really good as well. Eye-catching performance in terms of a few of his stops and and a couple of the contributions he had on the attacking side of the ball as well. Um, yeah, you can't um you can't knock any of Newcastle's players, and that's what happens when you win 40-6. And like I thought, I didn't think Manley were terrible in terms of it wasn't like they just offered nothing. They were still coming away with line breaks, um, they'll they'll throwing everything at the Newcastle Knights. The Knights were clinical, and the Seagulls were probably 90% of the way there. Um the right edge on fire for the Newcastle Knights. Toby Winter, I mentioned here before with their performances, huge both sides of the ball, but in attack, that right edge, whenever they went out there, is pretty much him, skipped the outside to Ellesley to Nonu, or you know, he uh broke through a couple of tackles for his try assist for Ellesley, got a flick pass away, it was a really mad try assist, and then he scored two tries going down the right edge as well himself. Um, yeah, Mel Nonu, like I said before in the performances, three tries, 155 metres. He's he'd be right up there. Um, if he was picking a Queensland under 19's origin side. Um, anything else to touch on with this game? I've sort of covered most of what I want to do. 40 to 6 win. What else can you do? But praise the Newcastle Knights for their performance. They were clinical. Um, the Large brothers in this contest, I know a lot of Manley fans want to know where they were at or how they went in this game. I thought they were dangerous as ever. You know, Ashton Large could have very well scored a couple of tries. He he scored one um on Antony Large, he had a couple of line breaks and looked very dangerous whenever he had the ball in his hand. They just could not get Manley into the contest because the Newcastle Knights forward pack won the battle. There was a few disciplinary errors from uh the Manley side, which allowed Newcastle into their end a lot of the time. And yeah, they just it just wasn't quite there for Manley, but I did think those two gave a good account of themselves. They weren't um they weren't poor in this game by any by any stretch. So um, yeah, I thought they were two of probably Manley's best. On and Tony Large was was their best, uh, you know, not surprisingly so, but he he just had yeah just a few moments where he looked like he was going to break the Newcastle Knights wide open. He did at certain times, but that Newcastle Knights scramble defence was just way too good. Um that'll be it for the Seagulls versus Knights. I haven't left anything out of the notes there, so um, yeah, we'll we'll move on to the Roosters versus Rabidos. There's probably a bit more to talk about with these next couple of games because they were a little bit tighter and there was a there was more major moments throughout the game, whereas for the Seagulls and Knights game, it was you know you highlight how good Newcastle were, and then you move on realistically. Um Rex Bathswaite, he put on a show in this one. As I mentioned before, you know, he threw a mad cut out for a try assist, he scored a try himself. Very, very classy try. Um, it was very interesting to see, you know, with Catamarico obviously out of this game through suspension, he'll miss the grand final as well. Very interesting to see how they ran that halves combination there. And I thought it was going to be Keone Anatolia Chusis that came into the halves. Ended up being Zalen Eckapardi went to seven, and Rex Bathingswaite still played fullback, which I was sort of told that they were thinking about moving Zalen to fullback and Rex into the halves, but ended up playing out that way in attack. Rex still defended at fullback, and um Zalen defended in at three in, but Rex did a lot of the kicking um in this one, and I thought his kicking game was pretty good as well. Most of the stuff off the boot was through Rex. Um, yeah, and it was just a very interesting, interesting dynamic there. But they both played really well in this game, and I think that was clearly the right decision to go with that. Um you know, Rex can still just do his thing out the back defensively, and then an attack he was just gonna chime in and do what he does anyway. Um you know, try, try, assist, very good performance there. So started fast in this one. Uh the their forward pack got right into the contest early. I thought Benjamin Cabri had some very good early touches. Uh both sides of the ball, he was good. I thought Cody Hill defensively was very physical. Um, you know, their edges were were punching holes through through the roosters early on. They put up a kick early. I think it was Fortumuala. Might have put up the kick, Taja Alvarez and um left centre, don't have the name in front of me, um, were chasing through for Sierra and Rex Bath and Swaite. Uh might have been Caleb Creswell there. Yeah, it was Caleb Creswell. And um, yeah, he ends up picking up the ball, plays the ball, Taja Alvarez just comes through and um and and scores out a dummy half. That sort of set the early um, well, that was the first try of the game, go up 4-0 or 4-2 rather, because it was a penalty goal. Um, and then yeah, the Roosters, I thought um that their forward pack really got into their work around sort of the 20-minute onward mark. Um, Charleston Torore, Tula Seve, I thought were really good starting. Uh, their second stints were very good as well. And I thought the bench did their thing. So Josie 16, Agapetos Lotte Fellow Fellow. Um, he was really good off the bench as well. Uh, Kiwi import, I believe, um, from him, and he looks like he's very promising. He's an age up as well in SG Ball, so you might be one to watch uh over the next 12 months. Um, yeah, uh, terms of uh uh anywhere else the game went, the Roosters kicked away with this game through the middle part of it. Uh Zalinek Aparty in about the 50th minute scored the try that pretty much sealed it, made it 24 points to 10. And I just thought South's needed to probably get Taj Alvarez a little bit more ball because every single time he touched he looked dangerous. He had a couple of errors, a lot of errors, like you know, I think he had three in the game, but uh most of them were sort of in the contest or trying to do something, uh, like a forward pass and then um up in the kick to kick contest, which he was chasing through and and putting pressure on every single kick chase that that he had. Um yeah, he he was throwing his passing when they went to the left edge looked very dangerous. Just very interesting that they didn't get him a little bit more ball, especially with the way that he started the game, you know, the try and a try assist, two line breaks in the first 20 odd minutes, and then you know, later in the game they went out to his edge and and they stripped the Roosters for numbers thanks to a cutout ball from Taja Alvarez, and they couldn't quite finish that off. Um, but yeah, like I said, the Roosters forward pack, they probably just overran South, so they dominated the um field position for the most part, uh just won the physicality battle through the middle. I thought um the next note here, because I didn't really have anything that flows off that, but the next note that I do have here is the defensive work of both dummy halves. They're probably the two premier defensive nines in the game, and it was something that I highlighted coming in. Liam Bell and Cody Hill. You know, Liam Bell's the Australian School Boy's number nine. Cody Hill's a guy who I would have picked for Origin of 19s for New South Wales. I think he's probably been the form number nine of the competition. Both of them defensively really stood up. Um, and you know, Cody Hill had a line break in this game and done some classy things in attack, but it was mostly, you know, he got through 40 tackles in this one, uh topped the tackle count uh again, and just in his contact, very physical, um and just yeah, just very, very good on the defensive side of the ball. There's not too much more I can say um with that. He came up with a couple of nice stops close to the line, he got very physical on a tool the sevey and and Charleston Totorore uh in that first 20 minutes as well, who were two guys who I mentioned were very good through the middle. Um but yeah, that that first 20 minutes was South winning the contest. It was largely to do with with the defensive work, slowing down those middles uh early on, um, especially from Cody and Ben Cabrier, I thought had his uh he he was good in contact as well, Ben Cabrio. I thought um in the early in the early going, and he ran for 155 metres himself atop the run meters. So top performance from those guys there. Um Joshua Festela, he was the next one I wanted to highlight. Two tries, two line breaks, 188 metres. You know, he was just very good out in the wing, his yardage work was good, he was good under the high ball, uh, and you know, scored two tries to top it all off. So um top performances from him. Um, like I mentioned before, Caleb Creswell being at left centre. Ben Cabri started at lock, and you know, Ben Cabri was good in this game, but it certainly is a little bit different having you know Dean Tower out there compared to Caleb Creswell, who's you know, he he looked like uh at different stages. I don't know if this was I can't really recall if this was the case for the whole game, but at different stages he was sort of defending three in, and Taj Alvarez was defending at centre. Um I don't know if they kept that or if it was just you know at certain points. I don't know, I know Caleb definitely defended at centre at at different points as well. But um he heard he was a half. I haven't seen him play half before. Um maybe in the trolls he went into that position a little bit actually, but like he he from Queensland, I think he played Haas up there. He's moved into this lock role where he's been really good. Centres are a little bit different though. Um I didn't think he gave a bad account of himself at all. Um, but just you know, there is a certain level to it where it's like having to put Kreswell into the centres and and not get his work at lock, and then you know, you don't have Dean there for on the left edge for all the good things that he gives you as well, like Dean Tower and Um and Dane Jennings have been the best centre pairing in the comp this year. You do you do miss out a little bit there? That's not the reason why they lost the game. Like I said, Kreswal was good in this game, he certainly did not give a bad account of himself at all. Um, but it is you know, they do lose a little bit there. Um, yeah, so I just think those injuries, tough for South. Um, but yeah, full credit to the Roosters and their forward pack for what they were able to achieve in this game, and um, they looked prime to go back to back uh in the SG ball competition. Knights have been going very well, they finished seventh during the regular season, they've had to be up for a little bit of time to get to the point that they're at now. Um so it's gonna be interesting to see how they go next week. And you know, they'll the more clinical and dominant performance, and you look at the halves, Chase Butler at seven. If it was Chase Butler versus Carter Marico, you you're going, okay, this is gonna be an all-time contest, but now you know the Rooster don't have Carter. And yeah, I I'd get a this game coming into it. I thought was going to be a very good game. I got a little bit of a weird feeling out of it that you know both teams weren't at their absolute best, and that has to do with injuries and suspensions and all those sorts of things, but it wasn't the you know the blockbuster you probably expected coming into it. Um and that yeah, like I said, injuries suspensions, that that has to do with it. But um, yeah, the Roosters they looked prime to go back to back. Like I said, been the best team all year. Pre season, I was saying it, they are stacked beyond belief, and um, you know, finished third, got through the finals games with relative ease in terms of you know, they they smacked the storm week one, and then against the Rabbitos, it was a tight game for the most part, but they sort of kicked away through that middle period, and then you know, being up 24-10, it was sort of like, yeah, okay, uh they've they've done it here. Um Zalanakka Party, like I said, he he had a class try at the end to sort of sort of put it put the game to bed at about the 50th uh minute. He he stepped through a couple of um defenders and just you know very classy involvement. He he's been really good in attack with every single opportunity that he's had in this rooster side, especially with Rex missing a few games to injury and whatnot. Um and yeah, I'm very keen to see how they go with Rex and Zalen there, and it's gonna be an attacking, it's just gonna be very fun to watch an attack with those two in the positions that they are. And I thought Brock Elliott as well was pretty good on this left edge. He had a nice cutout uh pass for the um Joshua Festle try. And like I said, the Roosters bench, they were awesome as well in this game. Um, I've actually got numbers for the Harold Matthews, so I can probably dive a little bit deeper into that in from a numbers point of view. I I can obviously only really talk on you know the ITS and what I've seen and what the top performances were in um in the SG ball, but maybe we can go a little bit deeper into Steelers versus Roosters, Harold Matthews. Um, like I mentioned before, what's Harper Boothroyd and Ty Skips were the two best on ground. I don't need to say too much more about them. Markus Sando, he's been the form lock of this final series. Every single game he's he's been top of the meters charts. Again, here 128 meters, a try, 20 tackles, top of the tackle count and the um and the meters count. Very good lock forward, and he's been the form player of the of the finals. Certainly the form uh forward of the finals. I mentioned, you know, he's he got a I posted about him after the finals week one, finals week two is just as good, and then this game as well, tops a media and and tackle count again. He is flying at the moment, the Russa skipper. Uh Manatoya, I'll mention most both of the Toya brothers, but uh Manatoya, seven runs for 71, that was okay. His yardage work, and you know he's very physical. You know what you're gonna get from him under the high ball. He came up with a huge catch in a good moment. He came up with the intercept right at the end, just some clutch plays. He he just looks very, very classy as a as a footballer Monotoya. Uh defensively came up with a few good reads as well. Just those those little moments that helped to win new games. He was winning all of those sort of little moments. He didn't pop out in the stat sheet, didn't have tries, line breaks, tackle breaks, all these different things. You know, seven runs for 71 meters, modest, but he just won those little interactions that he had throughout the course of this game, and that was a big reason as to why they won, especially those sort of interactions at the end with his defense and the intercept that he took as well, and you know that um that uh take that he had under the high ball under a lot of pressure, and he took it easy, like he he just there's a lot of trust, despite him being an age up in this in this uh Howard Matthews competition. It seems like there's a lot of just trust and a lot of safety when the ball's going out towards him. Um early on, pretty back and forth game. I think I mentioned that before, but I've I've definitely mentioned it with a couple of games so far at least. Um it was actually very high quality this game, very limited errors. I think the Roosters completed at 96%, the Steelers completed at 80%. I think errors gifted the Rooster a lot of field position for their early tries. Uh, it was a drop right in their line at about the 10 meter mark that um allowed Ty Skipps to get his first try. But I think that was the case for the most part that whichever team lacked in their in their discipline or whichever team didn't really um execute perfectly gave the ball back to the other team and then they scored. It was a high-scoring game, 36-26. The defence wasn't terrible though, um, in the second half more. So I think there was a couple of bad defensive moments in the first half, especially, you know, that rooster's right edge ran rampant um throughout this game, and in that first half in particular, I think they scored 24 points, you know, a couple of tries down that right edge, which weren't ideal. Um, but yeah, it's penalties and set restarts and errors pretty much led to every single try, especially in that first half. Uh, so it was just, yeah, whichever team could stay disciplined the longest was going to win this game, and and the Roosers did that. 96% completion rate is huge. Um, you know, the penalty count wasn't too bad from either side. And they, you know, they dominated the run meters, they dominated all these uh um yardage stats that you can dominate, and they came away with the win. Their forward pack, very intimidating, Cooper Tesserier got penalized a couple of times, but geez, he can hit in defense. That, you know, that contact in defense is so crucial in you know establishing a physical dominance over an opposition team. And um, they were able to do that. You know, their back row was Ty Skips, he scored two tries, he was very physical in attack, his physical in defense as well. Kept Cooper Tesseriero, Marco Sando mentioned him, you know, just topping the yardage and topping the tackle count. Very physical there. He he he as well got penalized um once or twice for a couple of you know silly things around the ruck, but like it's all a part of um just the dominance that they've had through their forward pack and how intimidating their forward pack is. They lost um C of Fido early in this game as well, and you know, their bench forwards came on and done a really good job at maintaining that aggression that helped them to win this game. And that that's really what done it for the Roosters. Their middle, like has been the case throughout the whole game, you know, uh throughout the whole final series, it's their middle and their forwards generally that have been winning them these games. And then off the back of that, you know, your Harper Boothroids, your Charlie Webb. Charlie Webb was awesome as well. I actually forgot to write his name down here in the notes, but you know, his first half he had a um you know set up the right side nicely with a couple trades, he had a line break, um ran for for good metres as well. Um I think it was seven runs for about 116 metres or something along those lines, and um cut heap, heap of tackle breaks, line breaks, all those sorts of things. So he was very good. Charlie Webb, um, very creative as usual. But those guys, you know, Webb, Sam Large threw a mad cutout ball to score on the right side. Um Amazai Pritchard's try, I think was off for Sam Large, like three-man cutout. Those guys are playing this really good footy, Hubbard Boothroyd, setting up these outside backs. You know, Levi Scarlet had another pretty good game. He had a couple of um errors in this one as well, but he for the most part was very good physical enough defensively, good out of yardage, scored a couple of tries as well. And all of that, you know, all of that, he's just a well-oiled machine, and like I've been saying over the last couple of weeks, they've been building so nicely and from 1 to 13, 1 to 17, very, very good across the park, forward packs doing their job, and then off the back of that, the backs are uh playing good footy. Um, I thought for the Steelers, they took the lead late in not late in this game, but with about probably 15 minutes to go. It was Fletcher Couchman with the offload to Ashford Chapman. I thought Fletcher Couchman was probably the Steelers' best in this game. Jersey just kept popping up everywhere. Um, you know, he was good carrying the ball defensively, he was popping up everywhere and um had a couple of nice offloads as well that um led to a bit of expansive play for the Steelers. Um and Ashard Chapman, that try that he he scored was elite, like he just goes through, burnt the fullback with pace and um scored in the corner to get them up 26 points to 24. Um yeah, just unfortunate late in the game, they just couldn't quite um slow down the Roos' momentum. And then yeah, with the game there to be one, it was Harper Boothroid, cut out board Andy Toya, and then you know Munno Toyer and Andy Toya, that they were both huge. Um the younger brothers are Robert Toya, but um they're you know in this Howard Matthews competition playing very, very good footy, uh, especially this back half of the year. Like I've said, they've built really nicely, and and the rooster are peaking at the right time, and hence why over the last couple of weeks I've sort of said they're right up there in terms of winning the comp. And then you know, the Panthers-Roosters game leading into that. I said the winner of this game will win the comp, and I'm gonna stick with that. Um I think the Roosters are just playing a very high level of footy, and you know, Andy Toyer comes up to try, he came up with a good defensive stop out in the right edge, Manatoya. Those plays that I mentioned before as well. Playing very good footy out there. Um, yeah, you you could really mention pretty much the entire of the entirety of the Roosters side, but yeah, it's just um just a very classy win against a top opposition. Like the Steelers came to play like they were good. Um, but the Roosters, you when you complete at 96% and your forward packers marching as well as they are, it's very, very difficult to beat. And the Steelers gave a very good account of themselves. Um, but yeah, 36-26 full-time, and uh Roosters go into the grand final. Last game, Rabidos versus Knights. I will start off the Knights, the winners. I'll start off by praising them, get into the Rabidos um because I think there's a lot of talking points to come from the Rabidos perspective. Um, but like the Knights left edge, they they're solidifying themselves as um the best in the competition, sort of been saying that for for a while. Riley Rostran, one of the former players, Cade McKay, he's been awesome in the back row, he was in my team of the team of the year, and Malachi Fava Eli was a guy who probably just missed out on my team of the year, he was right up there. Um, you know, he had a battle with Diesel Galonta, which was two of the premier centres in the competition. They had an awesome matchup, but I'll talk about that in a second. But you know, 219 metres, 11 tackle breaks, it all visually reads very well, but he's just winning his contact, found his front, made a couple of post-contact meters every single time he ran the footy. Um the scrum. There was moments where you know that he started off their set. Um, at one point they were trapped inside their own 10. It was a scrum, but you know, still inside their own 10. And his first carry got them up to about the 30 metre mark. Just very physical, very strong, you know, just really good in this game. And like I said with Caden McKay, very um back and forth contest, not really either side giving an inch, and then a kick goes up. Caden McKay's the one chasing through and wins that contest and scores a try. Just those game-breaking moments that he can have, and he did it against the Panthers as well. His kick chase um earlier in the year, about round six, I think it was, his kick chase was a huge part to them winning that game, and he scored a mad try and and set up another really crazy try in that cont in that contest, and he's just been the the premier back rower in the competition. And you're gonna see a very good matchup next week. Um, Cuba Tesserero's left side as well. So they're both left side back rollers, but they were my back rollers in my team of the year, um, those two guys. So very keen to see how they go next week. Um, you know, it wasn't um it wasn't like a super um, you know, it wasn't individuals just going absolutely crazy in this game, it was just a good team performance from the Knights. Their defence I thought was very good. They shut down the Rabidos on multiple occasions, you know, the Rabidos got into the red zone so many times, and I'll speak about that in a second. They got into attacking territory so many times, and the knights were able to just keep holding them back, and they won this game through their defence for the most part. And you know, Malachi Five A Eli was very good. Caden McKay broke the game open, but across the park, you can't really say too many had shocking games. I thought Chase Furman he he led the side around nicely, kicking game was good, just did what he had to do on Riley Roshan the same himself. Just a solid, solid and good win. And Eamon Gleason he he scored to put them up 12 points a nil at the break. He was good in this game as well. And yeah, just you you can't talk too negatively about the Newcastle nights in this one. Solid team performance, and you know, I've mentioned those individuals that really um stood up and and broke this game open. Um Rabidos, they like I said, a lot of red zone opportunities couldn't quite execute on it, specifically in that first half. They just had chance after chance after chance that they that they couldn't get it right. Um and you know, the knights didn't make that mistake, they scored twice. Um, you know, they they had their chances as well that the rabbidoes shut them down. The rabbites I thought defensively were pretty good, and um it was very interesting to to get down there and um you know I was right up along the fence line and able to hear the communication and that right edge defensively, and they knew they were up for a task, and um Diesel Galonta defensively been very good um very been a very good centre all year, and he and he was again here and his battle with Malachi Fiber Elo, like they they just went at each other all game and neither refused neither um allowed you know the other an inch really and um they both ran for huge metres. Diesel gone to 13 for 158, and like I said with Malachi 21 for 219 and um tackle breaks galore and out of the scrum out of that scrum play that I was mentioning, Diesel was yelling like loud comms, Malachi going to Malachi, going to Malachi. They got up off their line and you know, physical enough contact, but he was still able to to uh to bust off those post-contact meters that he was that he could. And yeah, it was just a you know, very this was a pretty high quality game overall. Like I I I thoroughly enjoyed it. Um the Rabidos forward pack, they were good. Um the Knights defensively were good, Rabidos defensively I thought were pretty good as well. Like the Knights only had one line break in this game, and that was for Eamon Gleason's try. Um, apart from that, you know, Came McKay scored a trial for an intercept and off a um off a kick. So, you know, you can't really negatively talk too badly, you can't talk too negatively about either of these teams, and um yeah, the Rabidos, apart from the fact that they did blow a few red zone opportunities, I've got to say it because I've got to judge the game objectively and um judge it how the way I saw it. The officiating this game was was dreadful. Um 9-3 penalty count, and like a lot of the time I was sitting there going, what what was that for? Um I didn't think either team was particularly ill-disciplined, and I just thought a lot of these penalties were very, very poor calls. And um the Rabbitos, they won every single major statistic, major attacking statistic in terms of they won their run meters by I've actually got it written down here. They run the they won the run meters by 350 post-contact, they won by 250, line breaks were four four to one, average set distance 47 metres for the rabbitos, 32 for the knights offloads. They won at 8-4, they lost the penalty count 9-3. And worst of all of that, in terms of the officiating and how the officiating impacted this this game, and like it it impacted the result. Full credits to the knights, they won the game, you know, and in my opinion, the best team always really wins because you know you've got when you win the run meters by 350, post-contact by 250, you've won the line breaks four to one. It means that you had opportunities to win this game, and you and you haven't taken them. In saying that, the obstruction call for Charlie Badop's trial was fucking ridiculous. Uh I was sitting there watching that game, like it I think it was Jaden Bishop running that line. He goes nowhere near anyone, and Charlie Batop just goes straight through the half turned in. It was a poor defensive read. There wasn't even contact. Like, what are we talking about? Like that was the that was the the the one that I went like that was the most egregious. There was a lot of blowing up about the forward pass call. I'm fine with that. I thought it was pretty flat, I didn't I didn't think it was forward, there was a lot of blowing up about that play in particular. I I can't blame the rest for that. But that obstruction call was egregious. Then there was another one later in the game, Xavier Sulivale L'Omano goes over, just crashes over, like doesn't slide over, doesn't nothing, literally just crashes over the line. And I've seen this now zoomed in, I've seen I've seen every single angle you could possibly have. He literally just falls over and lands on the line pretty much first contact and then like rolls forward a little bit and then gets up and celebrates. But he he lands on the line and it got caught a double movement, no try. Like what I I've I find it very difficult to understand what was seen there, especially with that obstruction call. Like, okay, I'm fine. You know, maybe seeing that he's rolled his arm forward and thought he was short on first contact. Okay, that's that's fine. You can live with that. It's fine, you can live with the forward pass call. The penalty count was ridiculous, but it happens. Maybe the rabbitos were ill-disciplined. I didn't think they were that ill-disciplined for it to be nine to three penalty count. I just and some of these penalties I just thought were were terrible calls. That obstruction call was like I don't know. And I was watching it with a couple of different people. The person I was watching with at the time turns to me and goes, What like what was that? Where was the obstruction there? I go, I just didn't even see it. Like I the half turns in, and Jaden Bishop goes straight through. There was not a thing wrong with it. Um, but yeah, I yeah, terrible, like just terribly officiated game. Oh, I felt very bad for the Rabbitos. Again, they had their chances. Um, you know, four line breaks to one. You've got to turn those line breaks into tries. Charlie Baed up went through um at one point and and nearly scored, just got cut short, and then they went out to the right, and then another fucking egregious call. Um, with the um I I actually can't even remember what they called because I was looking back at the video of it, and it was just like I think they might have called tackled in the air, but it was just a contest, and then it got knocked forward and then picked up by the Newcastle Knights. Off, I think he might have been in an offside position. I'll have to re-watch that a little bit closer, but like anyway, um, I won't go too much into it. For the Rabidos, though, like in terms of positives, Peyton's had our best player in the competition. Again, two huge plays from him to get the South Senior Rabbitos back into it. Four man cutout ball for Benjamin Wright's try, massive, and then scored a try as well to make it 12 points to 10. His stats 15 runs for 187 meters a try, try assist, four line break assists. Every single line break they had came off of him. Um back five were all very good, particularly Davida Hoppowade. I thought he was unreal in this game. He had probably his best game of the season. Um, 15 runs for 165 metres. Uh, he had a couple of huge plays throughout that. Um, you know, he got them into very good field position at one stage, returning the ball, and um he just came up with a couple of very big plays. Harry Dorohee was very good. I've mentioned Diesel Galanta, um, you know, Diesel Galanta and Malakoy Five Eli, you know, probably establishing themselves as as two of the best centres in the Howard Mathage competition. You know, my centres of the year were Lorema CSU, and I'd stick by having him there. Kingston Final was there as well. He was awesome for the Magpies um this season. You know, based on the final series though, it'd be hard to not have um one of Diesel Galantara or Malachi Five Eli there. It's just the the dominance in which they've played in the finals, and you haven't been able to see Kingston Finnail for a month as well, so that doesn't help his case at all. But um, yeah, just yeah, very very good performance from those two, and then um Anthony Malunghi as well. I thought he was at his physical best in this game. Uh 138 metres, 23 tackles, but he just up for the contest through the middle, and there was a lot of times where you know Knights forward was get sent back and look at who the tackler was, and it was it was Malungy, like he he was just at his physical best in this game, and you know, uh I felt very, very bad for South Sydney here, but you know, at the end of the day, it is what it is, they couldn't quite execute in their opportunities, and you know, they had their chances to win the game. I will agree with people that I've had a lot of messages from South Sydney um people as well, and you know, I I thought it live not influenced at all by any of these messages. I wholeheartedly agree with a lot of what they're saying. The robbed calls, yeah, okay. The the referee definitely had an impact on the game, and you know, there was three tries there that were probably tries that probably get called tries every other day of the week and got called back, and that has an impact on the score sheet. But like when you dominate run meters and dominate line breaks and and all these sorts of things, it means that you're not if you've only scored 10 points, it means that you're not quite executing, and that was the case for the Rabidos in certain moments, like I said, in certain moments. There's some moments where they executed perfectly and the ref didn't and the ref took it away from them. But yeah, uh full credit to the Knights top performance. Um, keen to see how they go next week against the Roosters Rambo. Tune in tomorrow for my full podcast. I'll preview the grand finals for these two competitions as well in that podcast. Uh, but other than that, see you on the next one.