Southern Districts claim bonus point win over Two Blues

Despite scoring eight tries in a 50-24 victory over Parramarra, Southern Districts coach Matt Barr was far from impressed with his sides performance at Merrylands on Saturday. The Rebels claimed their third successive Shute Shield victory and secured third spot on the ladder, but leaked four tries against the 11th placed Two Blues. “We know we’ve got the points in us but just defensively, we were a bit off today,” Barr said. “We weren’t hungry enough and that’s what we want to try and build our team around. We made mistakes and in this competition, we know that each week, they make you pay.” First half tries to Waldo Wessels, Paul Asquith and Ben Volavola gave the Rebels a 21-5 half time lead, before defensive lapses allowed Parramatta back into the match. Whilst the Rebels attacked proved to much for the Two Blues in the final 15 minutes, Barr acknowledged his side can’t afford to repeat their defensive performance in the coming weeks. “It’s hard week in, week out in contact sport to front up and get the job done and as I said to the boys afterwards, I’m not overly happy with the performance but it could have been worse, we could have dropped the game today and the Souths of old did drop games like this,” he reflected. “We got the job done, it could have been a danger game, it could have been one of those where we’ve been up for a couple of weeks and come here a bit complacent and we were certainly off defensively. I challenge the boys each week to keep the opposition under 20pts and we failed on that today and I think that just came down to our attitude right from the start.” Stand in skipper Marcus Carbone agreed that the Rebels attitude wasn’t quite right on Saturday. “We were well aware that Parra are one of those teams that if you let them get a bit of momentum in the first 20 minutes, they’ll run you around and give you a run for your money but we still came out of the blocks pretty slow and our attitude in that opening quarter just wasn’t there,” Carbone said. Carbone has been one of the Rebels best again in 2015 and is continuing to grow into his newfound leadership role, in the absence of regular captain Jed Holloway. “I’m enjoying it when I get the opportunity and I’ve got another year’s experience of 1st Grade footy behind me now which helps you try and make the right calls at the right times in certain positions on the field – what lineout to call, what scrum move to call etc,” he said. “I’m really starting to embrace the role.” Southern Districts face Warringah (4th), Sydney Uni (5th) and Randwick (6th) in the coming weeks, with all three opponents fighting to secure a spot in the Shute Shield finals. The Rebels host Warringah in the first of those matches at Forshaw Park this Saturday.