Harold Matthews
1 JOHN FONUA
2 HAZE DUNSTER
3 TUI AFUALO
4 TAUFA AFU
5 KYTAK CHAN
6 TRAVIS TURNBULL
7 ALEX SEVE
8 JOSHUA CURRAN
9 JUNIOR MOAGA
10 SAMUEL LILOMAIAVA
11 FILIA UTOIKAMANU
12 JARROD SPICER
13 KYLE CASSEL
14 WELLINGTON SEVE
15 JOSH DELAILOA
16 OREGON KAUFUSI
17 JARED JOE
18 ETHAN PARRY
24 PJ VAIGALU
25 ZACHARY TUALA
Jesse Cronin was limping after the game last week and seemed to have copped a knock to his knee. Hopefully it wasn't anything serious.
SG Ball
1 SIONE KATOA
2 ISRAEL SEFAULE
3 DANE AUKAFOLAU
4 NICK OKLADANIKOV
5 CAMERON DAVIS
6 MICHAEL DOOLAN
7 TROY DARGAN
8 CAMERON KING
9 JOSEPH TRAMONTANA (C)
10 JAMES TASIPALE
11 JAKE BRENNAN
12 NICK TOOMATA
13 DENZAL TONISE
14 JOSH CARR
15 SIMON FONUA
16 SEAN KEPPIE
17 TANGI HOKAI
18 DEAN MATTERSON
Replies
Just got back from the District Reps. Another good win for the Harold Matthews even without front line forwards Jesse Cronin and PJ Vaigalu - both of whom are being monitored for short term niggles. They over ran the Steelers 32-8 in the end. Tui Afualo had another monster game and leveled a poor Steeler with a bone crunching hit.
Unfortunately the SG Ball suffered their first loss of the season. Illawarra were the better team for the majority of the game with the Eels giving up plenty of possession through out the match. Parra finally roared to life in the final 10 minutes and bridged the margin to just 2 points at 32-30 before a controversial delayed call from the far side touchy for a shoulder charge on the Illawarra kicker lead to a massive reversal of momentum in the final 2 minutes.
Next week the District Reps are out at Penrith and will be a logistical clash with the NSW Cup game so I will have to make a call this week on what to cover.
From the Harold Matthews today there's just one name that sticks out from memory...Tui Afualo. He's just an absolute beast in attack and defence, there was man instances where he was carrying players, breaking tackles making 20-30 metre runs. And in defence there was one sickening hit where he slaughtered a Steeler's forward and unfortunately the young man had to be taken off the field with what appeared to be a shoulder problem. Outside of Tui though I was very impressed with Josh Curran in the middle, he's a big boy in our team but looking at both teams he wasn't the biggest out there but his performance is huge. As I was sitting in front of the Parra bench I got to hear some good things, it was about 2 minutes after Josh came off they were looking for another interchange and they called out "Josh" so he looked up and put his headgear on and was raring to go again but it was another Josh they were calling. He wants to be in amongst the play and has a big impact.
Shame about the SG Ball team but we just gave away too much ball and the Steelers were carrying us up the middle, it didn't help that the ref was making our defensive line go back further than theirs but that shouldn't be an excuse. In this game I was hugely impressed with Joey Tramontana, he is just another class above in both attack and defence. Whenever the Steelers looked to break our line Joey was there to bring the player down, in attack he was constantly in at dummy half giving some nice service to our forwards and halves. Isn't good blaming the refereeing but there was some very dodgy calls including a Doolan attempt at goal which made the goal post disappear from where I was sitting yet the touchies waved it away; everyone including the injured/not playing 18's thought it sailed over and that would have eventually locked the score up at 32-32.