Let's dive into the stats post-game to see where the game was lost, courtesy of Ingenia Holidays.
Player in Focus
Latrell Mitchell came into his own in his fourth game at Fullback. He looked far more comfortable and had more involvements in attack than previous weeks. He attacked the ball and carried the ball back strong and had some great pass selections on the edge of the ruck.
The Rabbitohs fullback bumped off 10 players, covered kicks in his in-goal and found his outside men including Graham’s linebreak assist in the 50th minute, and through that silky cut-out to Alex Johnston for our first points of the game. Fun stat - AJ loves playing against Melbourne. That was his sixth try in seven games against the Storm.
Errors
We looked in control for the majority of the first half but mistakes began to creep in through unforced errors at the back-end of the half. This festered into the beginning of the second as we dished up four errors in the first seven minutes alone.
Luckily the Storm didn't capitalise on the dominance of possession at the start of the second half. We actually found some success by punching through their left edge, led by Jaydn Su’A and Campbell Graham. After starting the match with a perfect nine from nine sets, in the second half we had a completion rate of 50% and ran out of legs at the end.
If only we held the ball…
When we did manage to hold the ball, and not push the pass, we looked threatening. We dominated the Storm in tackle breaks 47-16, led the offloads 9-6 and only missed 16 tackles to the Storm’s 37. But they made the most of their chances and scored through their outside backs with each try.
Campbell at Centre
Campbell Graham grew up in the Souths Juniors system playing Centre, but we’ve only really known him as an out-and-out finisher on the left wing during his early career in first grade.
In his two games at right centre this year Graham led both the metres gained and held his own on the edge. While there was a slight blemish in his game when he came in for Addo-Carr’s try you can’t fault Campbell’s effort as a whole in recent weeks.
