Junior rep footy recap

The Eels and Raiders SG Ball and Harold Matt’s squads went against each other today in trial matches at Goulburn. The Parramatta teams both came away victorious, although in being the first trial it was more a hit out for the boys who haven’t played in over 6 months.

The Harold Matt’s game was fairly one sided for the first half at least, where Parramatta look the goods. Their forward pack was amazing and carried their performance today. Particularly notable performances came from their front rowers, and their lock forward who all took a lot of carries for not many mistakes at all and some effective offloads. This team is built to go with the best teams from the competition. The main problem from the Matt’s side was a lack of structure, when they got down to Canberra's end their attack looked fairly one dimensional and they seemed unable to puncture the line. There were a few defensive errors that allowed them over the line and also some moments of individual brilliance, yet I feel that was nowhere near their potential as a unit. One thing that seems to stand out for all Parramatta junior teams is fitness, and once again this Harold Matt’s team seemed fitter than their opposition. Overall a great performance from Parramatta and lots of potential within their side. Not to discredit Canberra's performance but a lot of the ball was in their end, and they shot themselves in the foot with errors and general mistakes. I thought their goal line defence was really good with lots of sharp one on one tackles. Speaking to a few boys from the Parra side they admitted that they need to be more structured, and that when they got down to Canberra's end they didn’t have enough of an idea of the plan to score.

The SG Ball game was a lot tighter throughout the first half, the Canberra team looked really good and remained competitive against a very strong side. The Eels were a bit clunky but that’s to be expected with 7 months between games. The Raiders were able to pull out trick plays, score off of brilliant kicks, and their left edge second rower for the first half was a player which really impressed me. Despite the Eels applying constant pressure at times they often let it off with silly errors. They struggled to create overlaps at times and they made a few mistakes which can be easily fixed come round one.