The third week of the Intrust Super Premiership NSW produced the goods with a number of entertaining clashes across the weekend. Once again there were three relatively close encounters - Mounties beat the Panthers 16-6, Illawarra beat the Jets 22-12 and the Roos eventually put away the Bulldogs 24-6 - while the remaining games produced blowout scores with the Warriors, Bears and Magpies the beneficiaries.
For the third week in a row, the Wests Tigers were comprehensively beaten and their match with the Warriors was the round's most uneven contest. Their 42 per cent share of possession was, along with Necastle, the smallest of the weekend and their 37 missed tackles was only better than the Jets' and Bulldogs' 38 each. In 2017, the men from Concord have conceded almost 1,800 metres a game on average, also averaging 43 missed tackles and scoring just 12 points compared to 130 conceded. The Warriors meanwhile were impressive in their first game in Australia, making six line-breaks, conceding only six penalties and converting most opportunities.
Other big wins came in the form of the Bears' 30-6 victory over the Knights and the Magpies' 52-8 trouncing of the Sea Eagles. North Sydney eventually ran away to a scoreline which was indicative of their dominance, but would not have been happy to lead only 14-0 at half-time with a massive 64 per cent possession. The Magpies' eight line-breaks handed them the huge win, while the Sea Eagles fell away at the back ends of both halves; they came up with four errors in the final 10 minutes of the first stanza and didn't even touch the ball in the final 10 minutes of the second, letting in three tries in that period.
In the area of discipline, Illawarra were the worst with 13 penalties conceded while their opponents conceded just six; the reigning premiers will be happy with their ability to win despite the lopsided penalty count. The rain played a big role in teams' ball-handling: the Panthers were the worst with 16 errors, while their opponents Mounties and the victorious Illawarra were not much better with 13 and 15 respectively.
Three players notched up monster metre counts this week: Johnny Tuivasa-Sheck's 237 metres on debut was pleasing, beaten only by Tom Burgess' 241 metres and Charnze Nicoll-Klokstad's 256 metres. In defensive efforts, Brendan Attwood, Tyrone McCarthy and Darcy Cox made 48, 47 and 46 tackles respectively - although the Sea Eagles' Attwood and the Tigers' Cox were forced to as their sides suffered significantly less possession than their opposition. Regardless, the three men played their role in the second row.
View the full stats reports from each of the games below - and stay posted for the Round 3 Team of the Week, to be announced on NSWRL.com.au later today.
