1st Grade vs. Northern Suburbs match review- by Sam Ryan

Southern Districts have held off a late charge from Northern Suburbs to remain the only undefeated side in the Shute Shield. After establishing a 17 point lead early in the second half, the Rebels fell asleep, letting the undefeated North's side back into the match. However the Rebels defence proved too strong in what coach Cam Blades described as his sides best performance of the year. "Today was a big step up by our guys, to beat the other undefeated side. I was really happy with the improvements to certain parts of our game." With a strong wind behind them, the Rebels dominated in the early stages, repeatedly breaking the advantage line. Rohan Saifoloi opened the Rebels account with a penalty goal before Andrew Leota crashed over soon after to give his side a ten point advantage. Wallabies coach Robbie Deans was on hand to watch the top of the table clash, and must of been impressed with the Rebels dominant early performance. Whilst they continued to dominate field position, execution soon became the Rebels biggest problem, wasting a number of scoring opportunities. Saifoloi missed two penalty kicks before his final pass to fullback Paul Asquith was ruled to have travelled forward. Things only got worse minutes later, when Liam Windon ran eighty metres untouched to score against the run of play and reduce the Rebels lead to just five points at the break. The Rebels forwards regained their dominance early in the second half. Timani linked up with Jed Holloway to put the visitors on the attack, before the Melbourne Rebels new recruit regained the ball and crashed over to give his side a ten point lead. The strong running display continued soon after with Luke Smart showing plenty of pace to finish off an impressive Rebels try that passed through at least eight sets of hands. The Rebels looked to have the match all but wrapped up with twenty minutes remaining however two quick North's tries reduced the gap to just five. The home side had all the momentum in the closing stages and looked certain to level the scores before fly half Scott Daruda kicked the ball away, handing the Rebels an emphatic victory. Blades was clearly impressed by his side. "I've been a bit of a cranky coach over the past few weeks, but after the weekend i'm pretty satisfied with how we played." Whilst he admits his sides execution wasn't perfect, he gave credit to their attack. "They've (North's) been conceding nine points a game on average, we scored ten in the first half. So if we are being realistic, we didn't execute perfectly but we have to acknowledge that North's were the benchmark." He was particularly happy with his forwards. "It was a pretty dominant display by our forwards, for pretty well the whole match." "Lopeti (Timani) has probably been the standout so far this season, but I thought Luke Smart was also one of our better players today." The coach didn't seem concerned with Rohan Saifoloi wayward kicking, also praising the playmakers game management. "He did miss a few goals early on, but you probably aren't going to get many trickier conditions to kick in this year." The Rebels will have plenty to play for this weekend when they take on Gordon on the annual Back to St George day at Forshaw Park.