I went yesterday and saw the last 15 minutes of HM and the full SG Ball at Campbelltown. As the scores suggest, it wasn't pretty. Here's some highlights I thought from the SG Ball game. The left hand centre Teapo Stoltman looked pretty good in attack. He's quite tall and rangy and moved really well. Got very little quality ball and space but definitely a good kid. The other centre Koby Douglas looks a bit like Jamie Lyon, shorter, stockier and made some good runs. I think the coach mentioned them and they both look quite good. Last year's impressive forward Rene Bagon looked good again in patches. Very willing and took some great hit ups. Jake Fulton came on as dummy half and they looked much better when he was on the ball. Captain, half and signing from Penrith Bunting looked good in patches, a very nice short kicking game and similar to DCE. Isn't the quickest though and you can see the defence knows he will always pass. No one else stood out much to me. The defence was the issue (obviously) it just seemed Manly could be cut open at any time so the coach has a lot of work there. Wests scored on their first attacking play. It went downhill from there.
What was noticable was that the teams weren't as big as the Tigers in both grades. I read we signed some country kids from Scone (where the Matts coach came from) The bigger islanders from Wests were just too big and strong. Unless we are missing players, it may be a long year in the reps.