Souths Juniors Win All Four Grades
Last Weekend

The Souths Juniors Premier League team took on the Canterbury Bulldogs in their last hit out before the commencement of their season. In front of a good crowd at Redfern Oval on Saturday 26th February the Souths Juniors team performed admirably and left Coach Mark Ellison with many options going into their first competition game against the Newcastle Knights next weekend at Energy Australia Stadium.

Souths Juniors ended up running out winners in a tight encounter against the Canterbury Bulldogs by twelve points to ten.

Souths Juniors 12 (Try Scorers: Peter Taylor, Toufic Nicholas. Dean Byrne, and Ahmed El ? Masri Goals)

Defeated

Canterbury Bulldogs 10 (Try Scorers: Ben Farrell, Jared Hickey and Ben Farrell Goal)

The Premier League team are in a unique position of having to play a competition game prior to the official ?Round 1? of the VB New South Wales Premier League Competition. This game will take place at Energy Australia Stadium on Sunday 6th March 2005 kick off being at 2.30pm.

Souths Juniors Jersey Flegg team took on the Bulldogs in the last of their trials before their Round 1 clash against the Sydney Roosters.

With both teams hitting the ball up hard and giving nothing away in defence it was always going to be a tight encounter. Souths Juniors gained the upper hand going into half time taking a fourteen points to eight lead.

Souths Juniors then took control of the match in the second half and looked pretty impressive this gave Coach Scott Murray plenty of confidence going into their Round 1 clash against local rivals the Sydney Roosters in two weeks time.

Souths Juniors 30 (Try Scorers: Adam Sarkis 2, Adham El ? Zbaidieh, Jerrod McGaughey, Isaac Tautaiolefua, Dean Peters. Beau Champion 3 Goals)

Defeated

Canterbury Bulldogs 14

The Harold Matthews Cup team came up against North Sydney Bears in round 1 of their competition.

North Sydney opened up the scoring after four minutes after we failed to find touch off a penalty kick. Strong defence from the ensuing kick off forced North Sydney into a mistake and our boys were back on the attack. Abbey El ? Zbaidieh set up Cameron Pitman for our first four pointer of the day which locked the scores up at 4 a piece.

Again from a simple mistake North Sydney took the lead but it was Captain Michael Cummins who gave us the lead just before half ? time after great hands from Jason Coates and we took a narrow 12 ? 10 lead into the break.

North Sydney did their best to remain in the match and opened up the scoring after the half time break again nudging a head on the scoreboard. Brock Molan put us back in front scoring a solo try from a scrum. It was again our defence forcing a North Sydney mistake and John Joseph crossed for another 4 pointer. Joseph Matapuku finished off the scoring for the Matthews Cup team who ended up running out winners to the tune of 28 points ? 14. Brock Molan who had an outstanding game was awarded his teams best and fairest on the day. The first up win for the Matthews Cup team gives them a lot of confidence going into next weeks game against the Sydney Roosters.

The S G Ball side took the field and through Jace Molan scored after only four minutes courtesy of a Buddy Gordon grubber. Albert Tuara who constantly terrorised the North Sydney defence proved too strong in the ninth minute when he crossed under neath the posts to extend our lead to 10 points.

Beau Falloon showed amazing strength to score a try in the 17th minute of the match, it appeared he was going into touch but he reached through three North Sydney defenders to score an amazing try.

It appeared once the boys hit the lead they switched off and let the North Sydney side back into the match. Dropping off tackles, mistakes with the ball in hand presented North Sydney with opportunities and before we knew it our lead was cut to four points.

Good lead up work from half Chad Isles and Max Kerr allowed Reece Robinson to weave his magic and step through a number of defenders to score a try and extend our lead by 10 points. Jarrett Douglas also crossed the line for us late in the match. Final score was South Sydney 26 defeated North Sydney 10. Albert Tuara was named his teams best and fairest on the day.

The win ensured the South Sydney S G Ball side commenced season 2005 on a bright note and left themselves plenty of work to do if they are to be competitive in the year ahead.